


Tumblr fics

by Merixcil



Category: 2NE1, A.KOR, ADV, AOMG, Big Bang (Band), Big Byung (Band), Block B, Daenamhyup | DNH, EvoL (Korean Band), GLAM (band), Mamamoo, Monsta X (Band), Topp Dogg (Band), Winner (Band), iKON (Kpop), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:19:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 65
Words: 55,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1513610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are fills for prompts people have sent me (anonymously or otherwise) on tumblr! If you have a prompt for me please ask away - <a href="rapmon-dongsaeng.tumbr.com/ask>click</a>"></a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lovebite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jin/Kidoh  
> Promt: backstage blowwjob (NC17 chapter)

"Fuck," Hyosang breaths as Seokjin’s teeth graze his collarbone. Somewhere beyond the dark of the store room he can hear the cacophony of people blustering their way through the rest of the broadcast and if he really strains his ears he thinks he can hear Jiho calling his name, but the rushing of his blood in his ears drowns out any sense of obligation he feels to his bandmate.   
  
One of the hands pinning Hyosang’s hips to the wall slips to his crotch and he groans loudly,  
  
"We have ten minutes, maximum" Seokjin breathes into Hyosang’s ear, "is that enough time for you to get off?"  
  
Hyosang nods frantically till Seokjin slips a hand into his hair to still him and kisses him hard, lips pressing tight enough against his own to make Hyosang gasp and tongue tracing his teeth.   
  
Seokjin works Hyosang’s belt and trousers open one handed as Hyosang’s own hands wrap themselves around Seokjin’s waist. He feels his trousers fall off his hips and hisses against Seokjin’s lips as the chilly storeroom air meets his dick.   
  
It’s always a little surprising just how difficult Hyosang finds keeping quiet. When Seokjin wraps a hand around his dick he whimpers, when Seokjin moves back to his neck to suck bruises into the sensitive spot beneath his ear he moans long and loud and when Seokjin pauses to rub his thumb along his slit Hyosang outright shouts, shouts so loudly that Seokjin clamps his free hand over his mouth.  
  
As Hyosang approaches his orgasm, Seokjin’s lips leave his neck and head south as he drops to his knees and wraps them around Hyosang’s dick. It’s unbearable, it’s suffocating, Hyosang bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying out as Seokjin takes him in and then pulls back slowly, tongue tracing the head before dipping his head and doing it all over again.   
  
Looking down, Hyosang can see his dick between Seokjin’s lips, see the way his cheeks hollow when he sucks, see the way he presses against his boyfriend’s cheek when the angle’s wrong. He has to shove his fist between his teeth when he comes to keep his decibel level somewhere in the region of inconspicuous.   
  
Seokjin swallows, then stands, pulling Hyosang’s jeans back up as he goes,   
  
"I’d say you have two minutes to get back to earth and hide those hickeys before Jiho gets too curious for his own good," Seokjin smiles, leaning in to peck Hyosang on the lips; all traces of the Kim Seokjin that gives blowjobs backstage at music shows vanishing from his temperament.  
  
"Yeah….yeah I know I just gotta……wait what hickeys?"  
  
Hyosang scrambles for his phone as Seokjin hides his giggles behind his hand. When he sees the bruises blooming on his throat it’s a forcible effort not to thwack Seokjin over the head,  
  
"WHAT THE FUCK SEOKJIN HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO COVER THESE UP?"  
  
He’s shouts so very loudly that Jiho sticks his head around the door to make sure they’re both ok


	2. After Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jin/Rap Monster  
> Prompt: Namjoon works way too much, or that's what his friends think, that's why they decide to make an intervention (aka. make Jin hyung go to talk with Namjoon hyung and hope that his charm is enough to make the leader rest)

Six of them sit down to dinner that night, but Hoseok makes sure Jungkook fills Namjoon’s bowl all the same,   
  
"He’s probably just running late," Yoongi mumbles into his rice.  
  
Seokjin frowns, ”what’s he doing over there?”  
  
Yoongi shrugs and they eat in silence. First Taehyung finishes, then Hoseok. By the time they’ve convinced Jimin to clean his plate forty five minutes have passed and Namjoon is no more present than he was when the table was laid.   
  
"Maybe someone should go get him," Seokjin checks his phone for the umpteenth time and is ever more disappointed to find that he has no new messages.   
  
Hoseok and Yoongi trade looks.   
  
Seokjin glaces between the pair of them, “what?”  
  
Hoseok sighs, “Namjoon doesn’t like being disturbed.”  
  
"He’s been in the studio for almost six hours now,"  
  
"I know but-"  
  
"That’s not healthy."  
  
"He really won’t-"  
  
"This is the third night in a row!"  
  
"He’s working!" Yoongi snaps,   
  
"Well he’s working too hard."  
  
"He’s working exactly as hard as he needs to. No hyeong listen to me," Yoongi holds up a finger to silence Seokjin before he can get a word in edgeways, "Namjoon’s not an idiot, he’s not going to go skipping meals unless he’s onto something. I don’t expect you to ‘get it’ or whatever but trust me when I tell you that when Namjoon’s in the zone you want to leave him there."  
  
"That’s putting it mildly," Hoseok grunts with a pointed glance in Seokjin’s direction, "I know you worry about his health but if you have any concern for your own you’ll leave him alone hyeong."  
  
Seokjin slumps back against the couch and pouts at the ceiling. He can feel Yoongi and Hoseok frozen next to him, waiting for a reaction. His eyes dash from the clock on the DVD player, to his shoes sitting by the door, to the dark city skies outside the window.   
  
"I’m going to go get him."  
  
Yoongi and Hoseok groan in unison, “your funeral,” they chorus as Seokjin throws his coat around his shoulders and slips out the door.  
  
  
  
The lights of the studio are still on even when Seokjin stumbles into the lobby sometime past midnight. He should be used to it by now but even after months of training and promoting he still finds himself stunned by how little sleep the idol industry gets as a whole. He walks the corridors and hears Hobeom laughing loudly over a late night manager meeting, trainees struggling to hold their high notes in vocal practice and the familiar thumping bass of Jinhee’s favourite warm up track.   
  
There’s so much noise, so much life. And this is what passes for peace and quiet these days.   
  
He knows exactly where Namjoon will be. The dim lighting of the Bangtan Room is too soporific for late night work and the board room too stagnant, but there’s a balcony on the third floor that offers something of a decent view and Seokjin knows that Namjoon prefers the choked roar of distant traffic to the buzzing hive of human life inside the studio as a backdrop to his turbulent creativity.   
  
Seokjin opens the door a crack and peeks outside. Sure enough, Namjoon is sat on the swivel chair from Donghyuk’s mixing room staring blankly at a pad of paper before him.   
  
"Hey," Namjoon looks up long enough to take in Seokjin’s face before planting his eyes firmly back on the page.  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
"Nice to see you too Namjoonie,"  
  
"Please don’t start that ‘Namjoonie’ bullshit hyeong I’m not in the mood."  
  
"What’s got you so grumpy?"  
  
"I’m working."  
  
Seokjin closes the door behind him and wanders over to peer over Namjoon’s shoulder. The paper is completely blank.   
  
"Going well then?" Seokjin smiles  
  
"Oh fuck off," Namjoon throws the pad to the ground and Seokjin sees a vein in his neck pop.  
  
"Oh fuck off  _hyeong_ ,” Seokjin amends, ignoring Namjoon’s answering growl.  
  
"Did you come all the way out here just to piss me off because if you did-"  
  
"You weren’t at dinner tonight, I thought you might be hungry."  
  
Seokjin keeps smiling at Namjoon, even as the younger’s face descends through layers of frustration, confusion and irritation. He knows it’s unnerving and that Namjoon’s never worked out how to get angry with someone who won’t get angry back.  
  
"I got something from the corner shop," Namjoon finally managers, indignance sounding forced.   
  
"Sounds delicious,"  
  
"Don’t bother with the sarcasm hyeong it doesn’t suit you."  
  
Namjoon falls into sulky silence and stares out at the skyline. Seokjin reaches into his coat pocket and is relieved to find the ultimate diet-plan excluded indulgence waiting for him.   
  
At the sound of the lighter, Namjoon’s head whips round,  
  
"You shouldn’t be smoking," he hisses, but Seokjin knows the lines of his face too well and the exagerated creasing of his brow is all too obvious. Namjoon’s eyes linger on the cigarette and his nostrils flare excitedly as Seokjin blows smoke into his face,  
  
"What are you gonna do about it?"  
  
"I’m the leader, you have to listen to me,"  
  
"Ah but I’m you’re hyeong. Pretty sure that means you have to listen to me,"  
  
"Leadership outranks age."  
  
"Don’t go disrespecting your elders kid"  
  
Namjoon glowers, “I’m not a kid grandpa.”  
  
Seokjin snorts with laughter and smoke billows from his nose, “you know, Hoseok and Yoongi told me that you’d hulk out if i disturbed you, I must say I’m a little disappointed, you’re the same sulky shit I’ve met in dance practice.”  
  
Namjoon says nothing.  
  
"I didn’t come here to pick a fight with you Namjoon," Seokjin sighs  
  
"You could have fooled me."  
  
"I just think that you could use some time away from this place. Let’s go eat or something, get a couple of drinks."  
  
"I need to work,"  
  
"The paper’s blank Namjoon," Seokjin rests a hand on his shoulder and gestures to the pad of paper lying empty and forlorn on the floor. "You’re stagnating out here. Lets just get on the subway and get out of here."  
  
"And if I say no?"  
  
Seokjin smirks, “then I won’t share the rest of this fag with you.”  
  
He’s barely gotten the words out of his mouth before Namjoon has vaulted out of his chair and snatched the cigarette from between Seokjin’s lips. He brings it to his mouth and breathes deep,  
  
"Alright, but you’re paying."  
  
Seokjin cuffs him on the back of the head, “I thought you said leadership outranks age,”  
  
"You’ve got it wrong grandpa," the beginnings of a smile tease the corners of Namjoon’s mouth as he carefully and deliberately breathes smoke into Seokjin’s eyes, "you’re the responsible one here. I don’t think I could feed myself without you."  
  
And Seokjin can’t say anything to that, because much as the hole preemptively burning itself into his pocket is deeply irritating, he has to admit that Namjoon has a point.


	3. The Runs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namjoon-centric  
> Prompt: Namjoon has become homeless and broke after everyone except for him were abducted by aliens (Taehyung I'm looking at you). Namjoon is incredibly hungry and needs to get some money, and a toilet, because he is beginning to feel the onslaught of explosive diarrhea. Will he shit his pants, starve to death or both?

Living on the streets isn’t so bad, Namjoon supposes. Once you get used to sleeping on concrete and waking up covered in bird shit it’s sort of like being on a permanent holiday, no job, no taxes, no responsibilities…

No house. That can suck sometimes, but every time Namjoon gets caught in the rain and starts dreaming` of warm baths he reminds himself that no house means no noisy neighbours and suddenly the shivers don’t seem so bad. Really, the only thing Namjoon finds himself sorely missing from his old life is a toilet. 

"Please miss, I’ll be ten minutes tops. I just really, really need to poop,"

The woman in the doorway’s eyes pop, “there’s a MacDonalds three blocks away, you can do your…business there.”

"No You don’t understand I’m not gonna-"

The door slams in Namjoon’s face

"-make it." his stomach grumbles angrily and his bowls clench uncomfortably. Safe to say, he’s regretting his decision to try the cold pizza he’d found sitting by the bins outside the local hairdressers this morning. 

He waddles to the next house and bangs loudly on the door for what feels like forever before a grumpy looking old man answers it. 

"What do you want boy?"

"Please sir, I need to use your bathroom."

"Is that so? What’s wrong with your bathroom?"

"I don’t have one."

"No bathroom?"

"No sir?"

"Whyever not?"

"Aliens kidnapped my house and my friends and now my toilet’s in space"

"Is that so?"

"Yes sir,"

"Bastard aliens…"  
"He’s actually rather nice sir. just confused."

The old man looks at Namjoon hard, “what’s going to happen if I don’t let you use my bathroom?”

Namjoon’s stomach gives a long, insistent gurgle, 

"Excuse my language, but I’d say I’m about thirty seconds from shitting my pants."

There’s a ten second stand off during which Namjoon has to cross his legs to keep himself from farting and the old man mumbles something about ‘those ruddy aliens,’

"Alright then, but you better clean up after yourself. Upstairs on the left."

"Thank you sir!" Namjoon shrieks as he takes the stairs two at a time.

Namjoon smiles to himself as his bowels make a mess of the old man’s toilet. Now that he’s restoring comfort he can start to think about where in hell he’s going to find some lunch


	4. Lights On, Lights Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobeom/Seongdeuk  
> Prompt: Hobeom will only have sex if the lights are flickering on and off really fast.

Seongdeuk blinks at the light switch ”I don’t get it.”  
  
"It’s a strobe light, what’s not to get?" Hobeom steps gleefully infront of him and flips the switch, triggering the violent flashing of every bulb in the room.   
  
"Yeah I know what it is, it’s really annoying," Seongdeuk grumbles, squeezing his eyes tight shut, "I mean: why do you have it?"  
  
The manic glint present in Hobeom’s eye when Seongdeuk surfaces to find the room properly lit is enough to convince him that he really shouldn’t have asked in the first place.   
  
"Strobe light sex is just the best…"  
  
"Oh my god,"  
  
“It’s like having sex in slow motion,”  
  
"Please shut up,"  
  
"Honestly I don’t think I’d be able to manage non-strobelight sex anymore,"  
  
"Why are you still talking?"  
  
Hobeom grins at him, “i'm just joking Deukkie,”  
  
"Thank God,"  
  
"Or am I?"  
  
"I’m going home."


	5. Sexy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J Hope/Original female character  
> Prompt: something involving jhope and seeing a new girl at the studio thinking she isnt much but when he sees her dance he is mesmerized and he feels his huge ass ego shrinking   
> (some discussion of gender roles in the fic)

The music starts up, something lively and energetic and Eunji prances and pirouettes across the dance studio floor in perfect synchronisation with her reflection. She’s good, very good, Hoseok’s seen her wandering the halls of the Big Hit building with her hood pulled low over her eyes and assumed that she was one of so many trainees who were good enough to get into the training program, but not confident enough to stick with it. He’s delighted to find himself proven wrong.  
  
The bass kicks in, the beat of the music thrums louder than ever around the room and Eunji’s smile grows wider by the second. She looks more than confident enough in this light, and more than competent enough to pull off far more complex routines than the average trainee.   
  
She’s Jinhee’s pet project. Hoseok supposes that alone should have been enough information to deduce that she was a fantastic dancer but he can’t believe that Jinhee would hide so much talent from him for so long. Eunji’s name has been floating around between Jiyeon and Miso for months now, whispers of admiration and exasperation in equal measure - Hoseok never imagined that those fleeting snippets of conversation and a request from Jinhee to help out with some trainee quality control would amount to something like this.  
  
The track comes to a more abrupt halt than Hoseok was expecting, Eunji holding her final pose until he starts up a tentative applause. It sounds weak and unenthusiastic in the all too empty room. He hopes it’s not discouraging.   
  
"You’re very good," Hoseok grins at Eunji in the mirror, flashing her a double thumbs up. When she’s not dancing her face falls into a familiar stony indifference that he recognises from every trainee he’s ever met - the expression of someone who can’t ever let themselves be too happy with the praise they receive because the pressure to improve will always be too great.   
  
She nods, once, a sharp and and down jerk of the head, “Jinhee said I should show you this other thing I'm working on.”  
  
"Well then we better do as Jinhee nuna commands."  
  
Eunji’s expression is unmoving as she goes to flick through her mp3 player, her shoulders hunching forward to block Hoseok out as much as possible even though he’s sitting right on the other side of the room. For a moment he starts to wonder if the confident girl he’s sure he saw dancing in the mirror not five minutes ago was merely the product of his imagination and unshakeable faith in Jinhee’s taste in dancers, but then the music starts.  
  
The track is slower, much slower, a female singer crooning in English over the drawn out syncopation of a sultry jazz track. Hoseok can’t understand much of what she’s singing beyond ‘love you’ and ‘baby’, but he doesn’t need to. Eunji’s body makes it more than clear what the song is supposed to be about.  
  
She starts with her hips, swaying them slowly so that the ripples they cause flow up through her body before snapping to attention and running her hands down her sides to her waist before letting them carry her down low. Her hands on her knees and her legs opening wide as she rolls her body forward to take her back to a standing position.   
  
Hoseok feels his face begin to colour and he has to work hard to keep his eyes on Eunji’s face. Her smile is back but the character is different this time, accompanied by hooded eyes and a cocked eyebrow. She looks altogether unlike the pretty girl dancing in the mirror not five minutes ago and a whole lot more…sexy.  
  
Eunji’s hand runs itself over her breast and down across her stomach. Try as he might Hoseok’s curiosity gets the better of him and his eyes follow it. Down, down, stopping just above the waist line of her leggings.  
  
Hoseok’s holds his breath, desperate for her to make the next move, but it never comes. Eunji stands stock still staring at her reflection in the mirror and it takes Hoseok a good few seconds to realise that the music has stopped  
  
It’s over.  
  
He tries to clap but the moment has gone and Eunji falls back into her hunched shoulders and unreadable expression before he can begin. She’s still pretty, but not as captivating as she had been mere minutes before.  
  
"That was…um…it was good." he stutters out.  
  
Eunji shrugs, “it’s cheap. We only have to practise that shit because it’s an easy sell,”  
  
“Don’t put yourself down, there’s a lot of control needed to pull off some of those moves.”  
  
Hoseok sees Eunji’s lips purse for the briefest of seconds in the mirror, but then her face is hidden as she shuffles off to collect her ipod.   
  
"Jinhee says you boys don’t understand anything."  
  
"Yeah, I know. She’s probably right. "  
  
"She says you don’t know how easy you’ve got it. I’m not so sure about that, these ‘sexy’ concepts they have us working on right now seem easy enough to me."  
  
"Well I liked it," Hoseok tries not to choke on his tongue.   
  
Eunji shoulders her rucksack and fixes him with a long, blank stare,   
  
"Of course you did."  
  
By the time Hoseok’s worked out how to reply, Eunji is long gone.


	6. Homesick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rap Monster/Jungkook  
> Prompt: sad maknae and supporting rapmon leader fluff

"I hate my hormones," Jungkook sniffs into the fresh tissue Namjoon hands him, "I swear you were never this pathetic at my age,"  
  
"Oh I was pathetic enough. Don’t think that just because you’ve never seen me crying in the toilets doesn’t mean it’s never happened"  
  
They’re sat on the bathroom floor, long legs crushed between the wall and the bath, Jungkook hiccupping away the last of his sobs. He does cry a lot, more than Namjoon remembers ever doing himself, but memory is a funny thing and anytime that he begins to suggest that the maknae is having a rougher time than the rest of them Hoseok shoots him a long sideways glance. They all cry sometimes, and it’s not Jungkook’s fault that he’s the last of them left to contend with the compound effects of idol stress, homesickness and teenage mood swings.  
  
Namjoon throws an arm around Jungkook’s shoulder and pulls him into a lopsided hug, “it’s gonna be ok kid,”  
  
"I know it’s just…" Jungkook’s breath stutters like he might start crying again, "I’m so far away from home."  
  
Jungkook pulls his shirt up to hide his face as his shoulders begin to shake once again, and Namjoon reaches for the toilet roll. It’s going to be a long night.


	7. Runaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungkook/V  
> Prompt: Managing to have a successful idol life and good grades at school is a very challenging mix and Jungkook feels like, maybe, it's too much for him to handle. Quitting school it's not an option and maybe leaving BTS it's the best. Taehyung thinks otherwise.

_Dear Taehyung_  
  
 _By the time you read this I will be long gone. I have decided that it’s for the best that I go back to Busan to focus on my studies._  
  
 _Please don’t come looking for me_  
  
 _Jeon Jungkook_  
  
Taehyung blinks at the piece of paper lying on his pillow, “so I’m assuming you’re not the real Jeon Jungkook.”  
  
Jungkook (or at least, a boy who looks remarkably similar to Jungkook) is standing in the centre of the dormitory, a suitcase containing all his worldly possessions under one arm and an expression of wide eyed shock on his face. In his oversized varsity jacket and beanie Taehyung thinks he looks like a five year old whose game has gotten a little out of hand.  
  
They stare at each other, and stare…and stare. Taehyung is sure it’s Jungkook’s turn to talk  
  
He starts slowly, “so…you found me out.”  
  
"Of course I found you out you left me a letter explaining what you were doing," he squints back at the page, "it’s kind of a shitty explanation though."  
  
"Yeah…."  
  
Silence. Jungkook’s phone buzzes but he doesn’t answer it.  
  
Taehyung moves over to Jungkook’s bed and flops down on the less than substantial matress, “are you really going to run away?”  
  
"I packed all my stuff didn’t I?"  
  
"You could just be playing a game, like make believe,"  
  
Jungkook rolls his eyes, “I’m too old for make believe hyeong.”  
  
"You’re never too old for anything Kookie."  
  
"Whatever hyeong."  
  
Taehyung would be lying if he said he was surprised when Jungkook drops the suitcase and crawls up to join him on the bed. He had his Timberlands on and his feet dangle heavy off the edge like a kid whose legs are too short for his feet to his the floor.  
  
"I’m not unhappy or anything," Jungkook starts, "I just….hyeong do you ever feel like you should be off doing normal teenager stuff?" he turns to look at Taehyung, eyes expectant and hopeful.   
  
Taehyung says nothing.   
  
Jungkook sighs, “Of course you don’t.”  
  
"I don’t even know what you mean by ‘normal teenager stuff’"  
  
"Of course you don’t."  
  
The silence that curls between them is most definitely awkward, though Taehyung’s very sure that that has nothing to do with him. Jungkook is like tangible tension next to him, it’s only a matter of time till he gives in and explains what’s really going on here. All it takes is silence.  
  
3..2..1…and…  
  
"My friends back home talk about school and dating and their fucking…parents. I dunno I just….I feel like I’m missing out on everything, I know we have so much here and I know that we’ve worked hard for it but-"  
  
Jungkook kicks angrily at the edge of the bed, “I feel like I’ve lost them. My friends, my parents, my hyeong. They haven’t needed to make space for me since I was fourteen so it’s like there’s no space left.”  
  
Taehyung stares at the packed suitcase, “so you’re saying there’s nothing left in Busan for you to go back to?”  
  
"Of course there’s something left, it’s my home."  
  
They hold each other’s gaze for a beat, but Taehyung knows that Jungkook’s mind is made up,  
  
"Hyeong, will you help me unpack?"  
  
By the time Namjoon and Yoongi get home the letter is gone and Jungkook has nothing more to say about his friends back home.  



	8. Zoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jin/V  
> Prompt: FLUFFY TAEJIN ON A FIRST DATE???

Seokjin doesn’t really see the appeal of koalas. They have squashed in faces and their drab fur makes them look like ill treated plushies.   
  
"They’re genetically designed to die you know. Nothing that survives exclusively on one type of plant and then doesn’t have the good sense to evolve fully functioning leg muscles isn't going to last for long."  
  
"Hyeong!" Taehyung looks at him like a child who has learned too early the mysteries surrounding Father Christmas, "how can you talk like that? They’re so cute."  
  
One especially ‘cute’ koala yawns wide, displaying a shrivelled up pink lump of a tongue and two less than impressive rows of incisors. Seokjin can’t begin to fathom their appeal.   
  
It takes ten minutes to persuade Taehyung to leave the koalas and go look at something that Seokjin is actually interested in. It’s warm inside the reptile house, and the muggy smell of decomposing leaves is heavenly compared to the stench of the nearby rhino enclosure.   
  
A skink scuttles from one side of it’s tank to the other prompting Taehyung to nearly jump out of his skin as he edges closer to Seokjin,  
  
"It’s looking at me," he mumbles.  
  
Seokjin snorts, “it’s hunting. They give them live crickets so that they can practice the behaviour they’d exhibit in the wild. You don't catch many crickets standing still”   
  
"They feed them live animals?" Taehyung makes a face, "gross."  
  
"They’re only insects,"   
  
"That’s even grosser."  
  
A cricket crosses the eyeline of the skink too close to be safe and less than two second later they get to watch the poor thing get folded in half by the jaws of the lizard. Taehyung’s shoulder presses close against Seokjin as he shudders,  
  
"These things are awful,"  
  
The skink freezes, it’s eyes looking out beyond the glass. Seokjin knows that it probably isn’t looking at them, but it would be easy to pretend it was, “I think they’re cute.”  
  
"And people say I’m the weird one."


	9. Drunken Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seongdeuk/Hobeom  
> Prompt: Hobeom confesses his undying love to Seongdeuk

Seongdeuk isn’t really sure what he’s doing out with the management team, they barely talk to him except when he’s yelling at one of boys for messing up the choreo during a performance stage and they haven’t invited any of the rest of the dance crew along this evening. Yet here he is sandwitched between Hyunsoo and Hobeom trying desperately to keep up with amount of alcohol everyone at the table is consuming.  
  
“Here let me top you up,” Hobeom mumbles unnecessarily close to his ear. Seongdeuk’s stomach drops as the soju bottle empties into his already near-overflowing glass. He leans over to take a swig and winces at the hangover he can already feel brewing behind his eyes, he’s not exactly looking forward to the morning.   
  
“Deukkie!” Jaegeun exclaims like he’s just realised Seongdeuk exists, “Deukkie, Deukkie, Deukkie…I can call you Deukkie right?”  
  
Seongdeuk nods slowly, Jaegeun laughs annoyingly loudly, “Ahh Deukkie, why’d you never come out with us?”  
  
“Um…” because you guys hardly know me? Because you guys are really loud and obnoxious and I’m kind of quiet and shy and hate being seen in public with loud obnoxious people? “you guys never asked me before.”  
  
Hyunjoo looks confused, “but Hobeom’s always talking about you.”  
  
He can’t keep the expression of bewilderment from his face. Luckily Jaegeun and Hyunjoo spot a pretty waitress on her way back to the bar before Seongdeuk can point out that him and Hobeom sit on opposite sides of the dance studio during rehearsals and have exchanged fewer than ten nonprofessional words in the entire three years they’ve known each other.   
  
Seongdeuk’s phone buzzes; he prays it’s providing him with a handy route out of this mess of a social interaction.   
  
Alas! The number that comes up is Hobeom’s:  _I thnk ur rly hot_  
  
Seongdeuk blinks at his phone. A host of questions fly across his mind, everything from ‘since when?’ to ‘how did you get my personal phone number?”  
  
He looks from the text, to Hobeom (sporting a deep red blush that Seongdeuk expects can only partially be blamed on the alcohol), then back to the text. He doesn’t feel like playing interrogater this evening,   
  
“Fuck it,” he mumbles, before downing the rest of his drink and leaning over to plant the sloppiest kiss he can muster on Hobeom’s cheek.   
  
In the morning the memory will be mortifying enough to cause a mini heart attack, but right now the squeak Hobeom makes is enough to have Seongdeuk rolling on the floor laughing. Maybe he can manage loud and obnoxious after all.


	10. Untold Desires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoseok doesn't see Jungkook _that_ way.

Hoseok doesn’t see Jungkook _that_ way. Jungkook is funny and talented and objectively attractive but his adolescence is all too prominent, voice still squeaking when he least expects it and childish tantrums tearing apart the illusion of maturity whenever he gets half a chance. 

He’s a child, pure and simple. Hoseok doesn’t think about children in _that_ way.

He doesn’t make up excuses not to be left alone with them after hours and he doesn’t avoid sitting next to them on long car journeys. He doesn’t need to because he never catches himself day dreaming about the strip of skin that shows above Jungkook’s trousers when he’s stretching or what his voice would sound like - what it would _feel_ like - whispering sweet nothings into his ear. 

Or filthy promises. Hoseok jacks off in the shower and pretends his fantasies can all be fulfilled by someone older, or at least by someone he doesn’t have to look in the eye over dinner. 

Hoseok lies awake long into the night and picks out the breathing of every other person in the room: Namjoon’s deep snores, Seokjin’s lighter ones, Taehyung’s mumbling…he pretends he doesn’t hear Jungkook’s heavy breaths coming from the single bed, he’s almost convinced himself that he didn’t pick them out first. He wonders what would happen if he slid himself under the maknae’s duvet, slipped and arm around his waist and pulled him close enough to smell his hair. He doesn’t let his imagination go any further, not now, not here, not when he knows he’ll wake to see Jungkook blinking sleep from his eyes and looking like a toddler on the other side of the room.

Hoseok doesn’t see Jungkook _that_ way. He doesn’t let himself believe that the smiles they share are any different from the ones he shares with the others and he doesn’t let himself pretend that the loose hand at his wrist tugging him along when he walks too slow means anything more than nothing. He tries to ignore the sweat sticking Jungkook’s clothes to his body after practice and the water running taunting riverlets down his back after a shower. He tries so hard to ignore it, he tries so hard not to see, he tries so hard to remember that he doesn’t see Jungkook in _that_ way. 

He’s kidding himself. 

"I don’t - you’re too young," Hoseok splutters when Jungkook confronts him in the bathroom wth heavy lidded eyes and curious hands, 

"So tell me to stop," Jungkook mutters against his collarbone. 

Hoseok opens his mouth but the words don’t come out.


	11. Inkstains and Sellouts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namjoon contemplates idoldom

Ink drips off the edge of the page to land on Namjoon’s shoes. He stares dumbly at the broken cartridge, pinched between his fingertips leaking black blood across his notebook and down his arm. He can feel rage smashing tables and screaming blue bloody murder in the corners of his body that he has forgotten how to access, but self control is key in this industry and on the surface he remains calm. 

Three weeks of notes, lyrics, ideas, the filthy joke Yoongi told him three nights ago - all gone in the blink of an eye, in the shattering of plastic. His clumsy fingers have tricked him out of yet more songs and though he frantically tries to think of all the things he could have done to stop it, of all the reasons this was inevitable, the ink doesn’t bleed out of the pages. 

Namjoon wrigges his toes as his socks begin to dampen from the ink. He wishes he’d had better aim - he’d rather lose the trainers than the lyrics. 

He had been onto something, maybe, just possibly. Something new; it’s difficult to say though, the taste of originality has become somewhat foreign to him so used to covering the same old ground as he’s become. He thinks he recognises that old excitement though, the conviction that what he has to say is important - but it could just be a new way of saying something he’s said a hundred times before. It’s easy to forget how exciting a song once was when you’ve had to rewrite the fun out of it.

He still has stacks of old notes, back from when he was writing No More Dream and N.O. for the first time. They live in cardboard boxes under his bed and only see the light of day when he needs convincing that his career is still on the path he wants it to be on and that the price of selling out is worth it. True enough, the songs that make it to release lack the immediacy of their original form, but Namjoon can’t pretend that the final product isn’t always better. Shihyuk never fails to steer mindless teenage angst into something that is as worth listening to as it is hearing. 

Sometimes Donghyuk sends him links to songs they did back when they were seventeen and though Namjoon longs to return to a time when he knew enough about a normal life to write about one, he’s mortified at the lack of control in his lyrics. All bravado, no tact, idol or no Namjoon’s only too glad that he’s begining to learn the necessity of the latter. 

Namjoon grabs a handful of napkins from the stand on the table and wipes the excess ink away. In a last bid to save his notebook he shoves a few between the pages only to rip the whole lot apart when the ink soaks through them without bringing Namjoon’s words back to the paper. The table is left an angry, ink sodden mess for all of two seconds before Namjoon’s guilt at the idea of someone having to clean up after him sets in and he hurriedly shoves the whole lot into the bottom of his bag, praying the ink has dried. He’s almost certain that his seventeen year old self would not have been so considerate and entirely unsure as to whether the change in attitude is something that would have happened naturally or if it has been cultivated. 

Shihyuk is sneaky like that, Namjoon became an idol by incriments, convinced he was firmly rooted in the underground until the time came to debut and he realised that the boy in the mirror knew too much about public image and the importance of good behaviour for that belief to have any credance. Donghyuk had smiled sadly and told him that he’d made the transition long ago and Namjoon hasn’t been able to trust his definitions of the mainstream since. 

The alarm on Namjoon’s phone indicates that it’s after six and he needs to get going, back to the studios to run through choreo and interview prep. Prescribed movements for his stages and prescribed words for his opinions, in principle he thinks it’s awful but Namjoon’s learned that there are too many pitfalls in this industry for him to keep up with and having the motions laid out for him is a blessed relief. 

And when he’s done learning which face he’ll be expected to wear tomorrow, maybe he’ll have a go at writing a song, something to replace the ones he’s lost. About something familiar, about something new…it doesn’t really matter as long as he says it right, the right combination of words and anything can be a hit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: rap monster. a lonely seoul cafe on a stormy night. talks of hip hop and artistry.


	12. Just A Pretty Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namjoon has talent and Seokjin has everything else

“Wait, back up a moment. You’re telling me this guy can’t sing, or dance, or rap?”

Namjoon shakes his head, “he can’t do jack shit,”

“Then what’s the point of having him around?”

“I would have thought that was pretty obvious,”

Donghyuk sits slackjawed across the mixing desk, sporting an expression that makes it clear he has no idea. Namjoon places a hand firmly on the crown of his head and diverts his gaze to the recording booth.

“Look at him.”

Beyond the glass Seokjin is fiddling with the corners of his lyrics sheet, mumbling something too quiet for the mic to pick up. He’s stalling, Namjoon doesn’t know much about him but he knows that embarrassment is Seokjin’s default emotion and Donghyuk isn’t very good at being supportive of the less talented trainees. Small wonder no one feels like doing another take.

Donghyuk looks back to Namjoon, nonplussed, “what am I supposed to be seeing here?”

“He’s pretty, idiot. They hired him for his face.”

“Yeah well a face alone won’t make it to debut”

“It might, if it does it won’t be the first time.”

Donghyuk makes a face, “you don’t think he will though,”

“He’s tone deaf and he has no sense of rhythm, Bang PD isn’t stupid enough to actually debut him. If Seokjin had half a brain in his head he’d have gone to SM when they asked him,”

“Nah I don’t think even SM would be interested in this idiot,” Donghyuk chuckles

“Well you never know, they let that Kris guy onstage,”

Donghyuk’s laughter is infectious enough to have Namjoon cackling back at him. In the back of his mind he’s aware that he’s being an arsehole, but right now he’s had enough of Seokjin’s bum notes and incorrect timing not to care.

The door of the recording booth slams open. Seokjin marches over to the other side of the room to grab his bag, he doesn’t even look at the twwo boys slouched over the computers,

“Hey!” Donghyuk frowns at him, “where are you going? You still need to record the second verse,”

Seokjin fixes him with an ice cold stare, “Why don’t you get Namjoon to do it if he’s so very talented?” 

They look between each other like they have no idea what he’s on about. Seokjin’s eyes narrow.

“I can hear you in there you know? The mics work both ways,”

Namjoon and Donghyuk glance at one another, eyes wide and mortified. Idiots. Both of them. How could they be stupid enough to forget that only in the main studio do they have full control of the speakers.

Namjoon starts up an apology before Donghyuk gets a chance to stick his foot further into his mouth, “hyeong I’m really-“

“Oh give it a rest Namjoon there’s no point in apologising now,” Seokjin tugs the studio door open and makes to leave, but changes his mind at the last moment and rounds on the pair of them again,

“And for your information,” he points a crooked finger accusingly in Namjoon’s direction, “pretty faces sell more records in this business than musical talent. I’m a more valuable asset than you.”

Anger flashes across Donghyuk’s face, “Bang PD wouldn’t even be trying to put this group together without Namjoon, he’s the reason you’re getting to debut at all.”

“I’m getting to debut because I’m pretty, Namjoon’s getting to debut because Bang PD wants him to. If Bang PD changes his mind then there’s no more group for Namjoon to debut with, but I’ll still be pretty,” Seokjin turns back through the door, “there’s always gonna be someone who wants me to debut.”

The door clicks shut and for a moment Namjoon and Donghyuk sit in stunned silence.

Donghyuk is of course the one to break it,

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he mutters, pulling up Seokjin’s audio files on the computer. Everything sounds just a shade too sharp and the vocal quality is horrible.

Namjoon wrinkles his nose, “I’d say he knows exactly what he’s talking about, but he still can’t sing.”

And for now, that’s going to have to be consolation enough.


	13. Fundamentals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungkook likes Jimin's feet

Jungkook has worked with a lot of different dancers in the past, street dancers and ballerinos, supple young teenagers on the cusp of their career and old women worn tough as old nails from years spent on the stage. American, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, men, women, every one with a distinctly different style that he can never completely replicate. Every dancer is entirely different from every other in almost every aspect. 

Except of course, when it comes to their feet. The fact of the matter is that no one can work their feet that hard without suffering some damage along the way. In just a few short years people lose their high arches and the perfect curve of their heel as they earn the flat soles identical to every other dancer. Jungkook can see it starting to happen to his own feet, he’s young enough that the definition of his mounds is still pronounced, but it’s nothing like Jimin.

Against all the odds, Park Jimin has fantastic feet. He’s been dancing for longer than Jungkook and by all rights he should be well on his way to having feet flatter than a duck’s, but instead his ankles lead into swooping curves and soft skin, his toes sitting in a perfect diagonal along the top of each foot, pink from the heat of the shower.

It’s adorable, Jungkook loves to touch them. 

He passes it off as ‘Good Maknae Behaviour’ every time. Jimin will come out of the shower and stretch out on the couch, his dressing gown falling off one shoulder and his feet falling into Jungkook’s lap, 

"My feet are stiff," he whines, "give me a massage,"

And Jungkook’s too eager to so much as pretend to put up a fight. His hands run themselves along the tops of Jimin’s feet, stretching them out to form a perfect line from his calf to his toes as the skin on the balls of his feet crinkle into patterns that look like relief maps. Jungkook sighs as Jimin’s toes unclench ans his feet relax into his lap, the curve of his arches are more prominent than of any other dancer he’s encountered (and yes, he’s been keeping track) and though the tension in the muscles is obvious beneath his fingertips, Jungkook can’t help but wonder at how elegant they look.

"You don’t mind?" Jimin asks one night when Jungkook looses track of time and misses the moment that the shower becomes free. He probably shakes his head too quickly but Jimin either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, 

"It’s ok hyeong, I like it."

The next night Jungkook showers early and Jimin’s feet don’t leave his lap until it’s time to go to bed. 

 

"I think you like it," Jimin says one evening as Jungkook runs his finger down the spine of his left foot. 

Jungkook shrugs, “of course I like it, I wouldn’t do it every day if I didn’t,”

"No, I mean I think you _like_ it,” Jimin pulls his foot out of Jungkook’s hand and raises it to eye level, “am I wrong?”

Jungkook tries his best to hold Jimin’s gaze but it’s difficult when there’s a foot in the way, “is it a problem if I do?”

Jimin shakes his head and wriggles his toes. Jungkook feels his breath catch in his throat, he wants to suck on them, he wants to taste them, he wants to see how pink they can go,

"You can…with your….if you want…" Jimin mumbles, and Jungkook doesn’t need tellling twice. He leans forward the ast of the distance between his mouth and Jimin’s foot and slides his lips over the first two toes before running his tongue along the pad of them both. Jimin’s leg twitches and Jungkook brings a hand up to steady him, rubbing circles into Jimin’s ankle as the older boy’s breath shudders.

"Jungkookie," Jimin whispers as Jungkook begins to plant kisses on each of Jimin’s toes in turn, "that tickles,"

"Sorry," Jungkook lets Jimin’s foot fall back into his lap. He can feel a blush creeping into his cheeks but the embarassment isn’t as profound as he might have expected. Jimin’s staring at him with a thoughtful expression but there’s no judgement in his eyes, Jungkook supposses that his attraction to Jimin’s feet must have been pretty obvious after all. 

"The others should all be asleep right now," Jimin murmers, "if you keep quiet they won’t wake up,"

Jungkook opens his mouth to ask what Jimin is talking about but the words never make it out. Jimin presses a foot against Jungkook’s crotch and instead he has to focus all his efforts on biting his tongue.

The angle is awkward, but the pressure on his dick is heavenly. Jungkook looks down and sees Jimin’s foot clench and unclench as he rubs him through his clothes.

"Do you always get hard like this?" Jimin asks. Jungkook nods quickly, 

"Sometimes I jerk off thinking about it,"

"Huh," Jimin’s foot twists round just right for the heel to make contact with Jungkook’s balls and he has to fight to supress a whimper, "I never noticed"

It doesn’t take long for Jungkook to come. He’s young and he’s been thinking about this for so long. The sight of Jimin’s toes seperating to accomodate his dick, the knowledge that the friction stimulating him is being provided by the same flesh he has touched and dreamed of touching for so long pushing him over the edge faster than he would ever have anticipated.  
Jungkook comes quietly with a fist between his teeth to keep himself from shouting. Jimin’s feet still in his lap and for a moment the house is silent but for the calming of Jungkook’s breath.

"It’s late, we should sleep," Jimin hisses, pulling his feet away and standing up off the sofa. 

Jungkook peers blearily up at him, “hyeong don’t you want me to get you off too?”

Jimin smiles down at him warmly, “don’t worry about it tonight Kookie, you can pay me back later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone on tumblr asked for kinky JiKook so I indulged the only kink I have haa....I'm sorry to everyone who made it to the end


	14. Saving Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seokjin's playing with masks and fire

There’s more makeup involved in being an idol than Seokjin was expecting when he first joined Big Hit. He’d always assumed that costumes and characters were something made for movie sets and theatre stages and that part of the deal in joining the idol training program was going to be leaving all that behind. 

His stylist fusses over his eyeliner and makes sure that his accessories propery coordinate with the rest of his outfit. There’s more acting in this job than a career in film would ever have entailed - up there on the big screen you can play a character and go back to being yourself once the cameras stop rolling but being an idol is a more demanding profession. From the moment Seokjin wakes up he’s working, making sure that he maintains flawless skin despite the makeup that gets caked onto his face for every performance, maintaining an absurdly slim physique despite the variety shows that demand he eat on command, suffering through dance practice despite the malnourishment; his job requires not just that he be a performer but that he be a role model. An idealised figure that can be marketted as the perfect boyfriend or son in law whatever the time and date.

The fans are more of a handful than he was anticipating - they’re exciteable and often overzealous, following them from venue to venue with cameras the size of their heads in tote bags slung across their shoulders to capture their every move. “The first rule of idoldom is maintaining your image for your fans” Bang Shihyuk cautions them, “work out who you’re going to be for them and then be it.”

Seokjin had assumed that when all was said and done his image would only really matter when he was onstage, but he soon discovers that if fansigns and interviews are going to serve their intended promotional purpose he’s going to have to smile through the tedium and the tiredness and his image offstage becomes as much a mask as the one he wears onstage. Even when they’re in the van, or in the studio, or at home, they’re expected to remain professional through rehersals and encouraged to update their social media as much as possible no matter where they are. He’s never sure when he’s going to need to slip into his idol persona and so he never entirely slips out of it. 

It’s easier for him in a lot of ways he supposes, even without the extra years’ acting experience Seokjin’s never been particularly outspoken or calous. He may not be the blushing innocent that he plays for the public but the only thing he’s ever really needed to work to cover up is how mind bogglingly tired he always is. 

He looks at the others and see a wealth of problems he doesn’t even know where to begin with. Namjoon and Yoongi constantly wrestle with the legitimacy of their music whilst Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook are too young to have the patience to fully seperate the people they are percieved to be from the people they really are. Seokjin sees how much of themselves they lay bare in interviews and has to stop himself screaming at them to keep away from the fire. He can already picture them, three years down the line with nowhere to put whatever’s left of their private lives and unable to tell which emotions belong to them and which belong to the character they play.

Hoseok is a different matter, he’s been in this business for the longer than any of them and his mask is so firmly painted on that Seokjin’s not really sure he’s ever seen him without it. Sometimes he wonders if there’s no act to it and Hoseok has in fact managed to dispense with his image altogether, but there’s cold ambition beyond hiding beyond his sunshine smile that Seokjin’s seen in too many aspiring young actors not to notice. 

"Bangtan Sonyeondan are on in five minutes," a PD shouts from the dressing room door. Seokjin stands and thanks his stylist, bowing quickly before shuffling off with the others. That’s another kind of image to uphold, the meticulous gratitude and politeness they must show for everyone around them, from their managers to the TV camera crews. Bad days are as inexcusable as tiredness and it is imperative that they don’t give anyone any sort of reason to turn against them. The tabloids are hungry for careers to ruin and accounts of overworked idols are only too easy to spin into tales of spoilt brats who only got where they are because they knew the right plastic surgeon. 

Seokjin steps into the searing lights of the stage and wonders when he’ll next find enough time to let himself properly unwind, to forget that he’s an idol and reconnect with the person who wanted to be one in the first place. For now though, there’s only time to slide out of one image and into another as he steps into position behind the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the promt: maybe something jin-centric? something maybe about the role of acting in his life--masks he wears? missing a theater setting?


	15. Familiar Territory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namjoon always lets them get to him

Seokjin leans over Namjoon’s shouder, “what are you reading?”

"Reviews," 

"Good reviews?"

Namjoon makes a non committal grunt, but if Seokjin had to guess he’d say it’s bad. Namjoon’s face is stern and his jaw clicks from the force of grinding his teeth. 

Seokjin leans back to get a better look and sees exactly the kind of comments he wishes Namjoon wouldn’t read: ‘ _Bangtan’s rappers are shite_ ’, ‘ _these lyrics are idiotic who the fuck is buying this?_ ’, ‘ _fucking pussies calling themselves hiphop artists_ ’.

"Namjoon…"

"Hyeong I’m busy,"

"Do you think that maybe you shouldn’t be reading those?"

"I always read our reviews,"

Yeah but should you be reading _those_ reviews,”

Namjoon glares at him, 

"They’re really awful," Seokjin sighs. 

Namjoon shrugs, “yeah well maybe we’re really awful,”

"You don’t mean that,"

"How do you know?"

"You poor your heart and soul into the group. You may not think we’re perfect but you don’t think we’re shit."

Seokjin slides a hand into Namjoon’s hair, letting his fingers find the pressure points that never fail to calm him down and waiting for the moment that Namjoon relaxes completely under his touch. 

It never comes. 

Instead Namjoon slams the laptop shut and vaults off the couch muttering profanities under his breath. He dashes into the bedroom before Seokjin can stop him, leaving him bewildered and not a little annoyed. 

"Taking your anger out on me is a dick move I hope you know," Seokjin shouts after him

"Not when I’m fucking angry with you it’s not!"

"What the fuck did I do?"

When he recieves no reply Seokjin hoists himself off the sofa and marches into the bedroom where Namjoon is sitting on his bed with his laptop open again, headphones firmly on whilst Jungkook playes on his 3DS and tries to pretend he can’t hear them.

"Out," Seokjin clicks his fingers in Jungkook’s direction and the maknae doesn’t need to be told twice. He waits until he hears the front door slam shut before moving over to Namjoon’s bed and pulling his headphones out,

"Hey give those ba-"

"What’s you’re fucking problem?" Seokjin presses the headphones into Namjoon’s slim fingers but shuts the laptop closed before he can put them back in. His jaw clenches visibly and Seokjin thinks that he must live with a horrible headache.

"My problem is that no one takes me seriously,"

"Us," Seokjin amends, "No one takes us seriously. We’re in this together remember,"

"It’s not the same for you…"

"I guess Yoongi doesn’t count then,"

Namjoon glowers, “I’m not talking about Yoongi, I’m talking about you”

"Yeah because I’m totally not part of the idol machine your old hiphop pals hate so much,”

"What they think doesn’t matter to you,"

"No. It doesn’t," Seokjin reaches forward to pull Namjoon’s chin up, making sure he doesn’t break eye contact, "it doesn’t matter to me, and it shouldn’t matter to you. They’re just people on the internet Namjoon they don’t know anything," 

"They’re not ‘just people on the internet’," Namjoon shoves Seokjin’s arm away, "they’re people who used to come to my shows and tell me I as gonna be the next big thing, they used to hear my tracks and ask me when the next one was gonna be ready. They were my fans and I’ve disappointed them,"

Seokjin stares at him, “well they’re shitty fans to turn on you like that just because you became an idol,”

"It’s not just because I became an idol,”

"Pretty sure it is,"

"Jesus Christ! You don’t know shit Seokjin, you have no fucking idea how different Bangtan is to the music I wanted to make when I was underground, you don’t know how fucking plastic this whole industry is. How can they expect me to keep it real when all they ever see on TV are these talentless, pretty boys who don’t breathe unless their company tells them to - where’s the merit in that?"

"I’m a talentless pretty boy who doesn’t breathe unless the company tells me so," Seokjin doesn’t miss a beat, "what must you think of me?"

Namjoon leans in close, eyes icy with rage, “I think you need to stop pretending you understand a fucking thing I’m talking about.”

He sits back and suddenly can’t seem to meet Seokjin’s gaze, “I’m going out,” he mutters, and Seokjin doesn't stop him. 

 

It’s long after curfew when Namjoon gets home. Seokjin hears him enter the dorm cursing furiously at a toe stubbed in the hallway.

It’s dark outside and the rest of the boys are asleep. The sounds of heavy breathing and Taehyung’s nightime ramblings fill the room but despite the late hour Seokjin can’t sleep. He’s spent the evening lying on his bed and avoiding conversation at all costs. Jungkook stucks his head around the door to ask if him and Namjoon had had a fight but he vanished when it becomes apparent that no answer is forthcoming.

Seokjin hears Hoseok ask after him and Jungkook replies that “Seokjin hyeong’s pretty angry right now I think he wants to be left alone.”

He’s not particularly angry, not any more at least. He doesn’t like Namjoon’s childish self importance where hiphop is concerned but it’s nothing Yoongi isn’t also guilty of. Mostly Seokjin is just upset that they can never have a coversation about it that doesn’t lead to a fight. He understands that he’s not best placed to talk about the transition from underground to the mainstream, but it’s frustrating that Namjoon never manages to make idols sound any better than trash when he’s angry - Seokjin’s always worried one of the younger kids will hear him and get the wrong idea.

The bedroom door creaks open and Seokjin does his best to breathe as quietly as possible. He hears Namjoon’s feet shuffle across the floor, slow moving in the dark and waits for the sound of his body slumping into bed. 

It never comes. Instead, Seokjin feels fingers brush against his own as Namjoon reaches up to thread their hands together, 

"Hyeong are you awake?"

"I might be,"

"Can I come up?"

"Depends. Are you still angry."

Seokjin can see Namjoon’s face press against the slats of the bed. He shakes his head and Seokjin shifts over to give him room. 

Namjoon lurches onto the top bunk and crawls up to lie face to face with Seokjin. Their hands find each other again and Seokjin waits for whatever speech Namjoon has prepared. 

"I’m really sorry hyeong,"

Seokjin hums low and pulls Namjoon closer,

"I know you are,"

Namjoon drops Seokjin’s hand and wraps his arm around his waist as he buryies his head in Seokjin’s chest , 

"I don’t mean to lose my temper,"

"But you do,"

"Yeah. Sorry."

Heat has always made Seokjin drowsy and the familiar pressure of Namjoon’s body against his own has his eyes slipping closed almost instantly. He doesn’t want to fall asleep yet, it feels like this conversation is a long way from over but ignoring the dead weight of his sleep starved limbs is increasingly difficult.

"Do you think you’d be happier if you weren’t an idol?" Seokjin mutters before sleep washes over him competely. Namjoon sighs into his night shirt,

"Of course not you idiot. If I wasn’t an idol I’d never have met you,"

Seokjin smiles into Namjoon’s hair and kisses his way down his face till their lips meet, sluggish and sleepy. It’s so warm and the bed is so comfy, it’s difficult to say where they end and unconciousness begins.

They fall asleep a mess of crooked limbs and unfinished conversations, and though Seokjin may doubt Namjoon’s faith in his chosen career path he believes him when he says he’s glad they met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Written for the prompt:** an angsty Namjin fic in which they deal with Namjoon's identity crisis, but Namjoon doesn't think Jin gets it at all or has any right to talk, which results in a big fight, a sad Jin, and a regretful Namjoon. A happy ending would be nice though


	16. The Long Way Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimin and Namjoon are off on a archaeological dig

The air grows heavier with each passing hour, carrying the weight of fraying nerves and insubstantial sleep. The minivan isn’t really big enough for twelve people and especially not for twelve students.

"I’m too young for this," Namjoon grumbles into his headrest, "do you even know where Bucharest is?"

"Romania," Jimin doesn’t really know what that means. He’d glanced at a map before packing up his shovels and textbooks but such trivial details as geography never really bothered him. Bucharest is a city in Romania that he needs to get to if he wants to gain the necessary experience to earn his degree. From Bucharest he can get a bus to outlying towns with names he dare not say aloud for fear of his tongue mangling the local language beyond all recognition, towns sitting above an archaeologist’s wet dream of shattered pottery and broken bones.

Bucharest is fifty two hours away from London by bus.

Eurpose scuttles past the windows at an aggrivatingly slow pace. Yoongi sounded so envious when Jimin explained that it would take days of foreign cities and patchwork crops to get to the dig - “you should take a camera, it’ll be beautiful at this time of year” - but Jimin can’t pretend that Paris is any more interesting to him than Munich and after a while the fields all blur into one. 

Jimin reaches into his bag and tries to convince himself that the biscuits he finds at the bottom are a necessary relief from hunger and not a distraction from the oppressive boredom that had set in twenty miles outside of Calais. He shakes the packet at Namjoon encouragingly and snorts as the other boy’s face pales. Namjoon is a terrible traveling companion and suffers from brutal motion sickness. He hasn’t eaten a thing since Dover and they had to stop somewhere past Lille for him to take an emergency bathroom break.

"I warned you," Seokjin chuckles down the phone, "the Eurostar may be expensive but you wouldn’t have had to deal with Namjoon puking all over you,"

"He didn’t puke on me, but he’s been in the bathroom for a quarter of an hour and the driver’s started getting antsy," Jimin gances up to see the burly Londoner glaring back at him. He wishes Namjoon would just hurry up. 

"He’ll be done in a minute I’m sure. And you’ll be glad he got it all up now when he’s not vomitting into a bag in twelve hours time, let me tell you."

Eighteen hours on and Jimin’s dying for a distraction from the rising heat. Five minutes standing on the side of the road remembering what the world looks like when you’re present and not just passing through - it would be so nice. Namjoon doesn’t have to be the one calling for a tactical pit stop, but no one else seems to be volunteering. 

"I’m not making myself sick for you that’s fucking retarded," Namjoon snaps, "if you’re so desperate to stop why don’t you tell the driver you need a piss,"

"But I don’t need to piss,"

"You’re such an idiot."

Jimin’s not an idiot. He has two years of notes written out in his most legible handwriting sitting on the shelf above his desk back home that have seen him through exams with minimal fuss. He doesn’t need to pull all nighters to finish assignments and he doesn’t need to spend dozens of extra hours cramming dates and statistics to be sure he had a proper grasp of the basics. Jimin likes archaeology and so far he’s been pretty good at it, but it’s easy to feel like an idiot next to Namjoon. 

"See, it’s not so hard," Namjoon sighs as he undoes his fly and a stream of urine hits the baking rocks at the side of the road. They’re somewhere in Austria, milkly sun piecing through cerulean skies to burn the backs of their necks. Romania will be hotter, Jimin knows. Hoseok’s been checking the weather obsessively for the past two weeks, shrieking through their shared apartment every time the temperature rises higher into the fourties. 

Austria is full of hills and quaint houses and absolutely nothing of archaeological merit. Mountains rise high into the alpine air to the right of the road and the foothills fall away to farmland on the left, it’s odd enough to leave Jimin feeling displaced but not so far a stretch from the Oxfordshire countryside to push him properly out of his comfort zone.

"You’re gonna love it when we get there. No distractions, no professors. Just a great big hole in the ground and the whole summer to prove that it’s something special," Namjoon zips himself up and for the first time since they left the UK Jimin sees him smile, "all that freedom…it’s gonna make you remember why you wanted to study this shit in the first place."  
Jimin hums in agreement and stares at the sky. The notes above Namjoon’s desk are not neat and his handwriting is so scruffy that Jimin can barely read it. He doesn’t study, he leaves essays to the last minute, and whilst Jimin keeps his head down and works hard in his flirtation with the possibility of a 2:1, Namjoon is on track for a first. They’re such good friends that Jimin often forgets that Namjoon is miles out of his league, that his range of motivation is so different. 

"I don’t wanna get back in the van," Jimin mutters

"Me neither."

"Do you think we could just teleport to Bucharest?"

Namjoon laughs wryly as he climbs back into his seat, “sorry kid, we’re all out of shortcuts.”

The engine stutters into life and the van sets off, back on the trail through deepest, darkest Europe. Namjoon swears and sleeps his way through the rest of the journey, and Jimin watches the landscape like day time tv, his mind so far away that he misses the moment that they leave familiar panorama behind for good.


	17. Ancient History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi questions his allegances, past and present

"I don’t get it, what are you even doing up there?" Nakyoon laughs down the phone. He’s trying to keep things light-hearted but Yoongi knows it’s just a cover for his curiosity. It’s understandable really, the idea of music as a stable industry with cash to burn was enchantingly foreign to him when he first arrived in Seoul but sometimes he feels more like a vicarious path to the capital than a sorely missed friend.

"I dunno. Dance practice, vocal training, dance practice, gym, dance practice, etiquette, dance practice,"

"The fuck do you need to learn etiquette for?"

"Variety shows and…stuff? The staff here won’t shut up about ‘image’ and all that publicity bullshit, they say we need to learn how to behave,"

Nakyoon snorts, “ _you_ need to learn how to behave you mean. Tell me, have you managed to get yourself an actual criminal record yet or are you still limiting yourself to petty theft,”

"Oh fuck off that was one time,"

"Kid the way you talked about it it was like you’d robbed the national bank,"

Yoongi glowers at the wall opposite for a full two seconds before he remembers that Nakyoon can’t see him, “fuck you,” he mumbles

"C’mon now that’s no way to speak to your hyeong who’s coming all the way to the big city just to see you next weekend,"

"What?"

"You heard,"

"Forreal?"

"Got my train ticket booked and everything,"

Yoongi sets the pen he’s been fiddling with down on the table, “huh.”

 

It’s not that he’s not excited to see Nakyoon. Actually he’s ecstatic, becoming so lively and talkative whenever someone brings it up that even Hoseok tells him to shut up, but Yoongi feels oddly apprehensive at the idea of having to actually spend time with him. His memories of Nakyoon, of any of the old D Town crew are run ragged with nostalgia and the rose tinted glory of childhood misadventure. He’s desperate to reconnect with his past yet unsure that they’ll be anything left to connect with once a shared hometown and their struggling hiphop crew are removed from the equation. 

Namjoon doesn’t get it

"You’ll be fine," he shrugs, "you guys still talk I don’t see what you’re worried about,"

"Yeah but we haven’t seen each other properly since I moved up here,"

"So?"

"So, talking face to face is different that chatting down the phone,"

Yoongi frowns at the back of Namjoon’s head and worries the dead skin of his lips with his teeth. He knows if he waits long enough he’ll be treated to the zen teachings of Kim Namjoon which, irritatingly enough, often hold significant merit.

Namjoo sighs, “I don’t get why you’re so worked up. If Ikje rang you this evening and told you he’d just arrived at Seoul station you’d be down there in a flash no questions asked but you can’t be excited about seeing your oldest friend without turning it into a stress fest.”

"Nakyoon’s not my oldest friend," Yoongi snaps, he’s not sure if that’s strictly true but Namjoon’s smart enough without knowing the intricate details of Yoongi’s social life, "and what does Ikje have to do with anything?"

Yoongi sees Namjoon’s eyebrows raise in his reflection in the computer monitor but he doesn’t get a reply. Maybe Namjoon gets it after all.

 

"Oh no, don’t turn around and get all anxious on me when you’ve been so fucking excited Yoongi, I’m not in the mood for all that emotional indecision right now," Hoseok chides after Yoongi has finished what he feels was a rather soul bearing monologue regarding the inexplicable uneasiness eating away at him every time he remembers that in just two days’ time Nakyoon and him will be face to face, "I’ve had it up to here with you and Namjoon whining about how it’s so hard to keep your underground contacts now you’ve got some major label backing."

"But it _is_ hard,”

"Then quit,"

Yoongi glares at him, Hoseok purses his lips. 

"It doesn’t bother you at all? All your friends back home seeing you differently now that you’re going to debut?" Yoongi asks

"I’ve been training for this since I was five," Hoseok deadpans, "there’s no one going to change their mind about me now."

And before Yoongi can delve any further into the mysterious world of Hoseok’s brutal realism the lights have been cut and all conversation has been rendered over.

 

_was it hard going back to the underground when you left big hit?_

Yoongi stares at his phone and decides that that’s too straightforward. He deletes it all and starts again

_when you quit, was it because of the company or your parents or your underground friends or…???_

Again, Yoongi decides that’s far too upfront, even for Ikje.

He’s sitting on the steps outside Seoul station waiting for the train from Daegu to come in. He told Nakyoon that he’d meet him outside Dunkin’ Doughnuts and then they’d head down for Namdaemun for lunch. It seemed like a safe place to start.

His phone shows half twelve - five minutes to arrival.

_a friend of mine’s coming in from daegu today. I haven’t seen him since I left home but I talk to him all the time. i’m kinda worried that we’ll see each other and he’s only gonna see the idol part of me and we won’t be able to talk like we used to, but i’m more worried that I’ll see him and nothing will have changed and i’ll wonder what the hell i was thinking leaving the underground scene behind_

Yoongi deletes the text almost as soon as he’s finished writing it. It’s therapeutic to say it, even if he’s not really saying it out loud but there’s no way Ikje would actually give him a proper answer.4

The clock rolls over to 12:35 and Yoongi waits with baited breath, watching the station doors like a hawk. Nakyoon comes out grinning against the wind and looking for all the world like the person who waved Yoongi off from Daegu station almost a year ago. Like a ghost from the past he rushes forward and pulls Yoongi into a bone crushing hug, “I missed you kid.”

And then it’s just like old times; the same jokes, the shared memories, the Daegu twang heavy in their accents and for all Yoongi’s lessons in how best to conduct himself in front of the viewing public he falls back into his position as the ‘nearly rebel’ production whizz kid of D Town like someone had been keeping the spot warm for him. 

He’s missed this, they both have. He doesn’t know why they don’t talk about that more often.

"Hold up a sec," Yoongi pauses halfway through his fishcake to pull his phone from his back pocket to find the device still ready and waiting to send a message to ‘Choi Ikje’7

_I miss you_

Yoongi sends it before he can second guess himself. Forward or not, he decides things are easier when he’s not beating about the bush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Can I have a fic that involves Rap Mon or Suga feeling insecure as idol rappers, in the studio angsting or writing lyrics and hating them or having writer's block or missing being underground rappers or idk. God bless you. /sobs


	18. Back To reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ikje gets back from the army

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Intended to be a follow up to the last chapter

Ikje gets out in the middle of summer, right before the monsoon starts.

It’s a long drive from his final station to Busan, six hours of wilting foliage and mountains he’s spent entirely too much time clambering over these past two years. Ikje passes the ride with his face plastered to the window and his uniform sticking to him in all the wrong places. His pack sits uncomfortably between his knees – it’s heavy and awkwardly shaped but there’s nowhere else to put it so for the sake of a few personal belongings he suffers pins and needles all the way home.

Home. From the moment he stepped out of barracks this morning Ikje swears he’s been able to smell the sea.  He misses it more sorely than he would ever have imagined he could when he first signed himself in to the Busan wing of the South Korean army, misses air fresh despite the pollution and a skyline falling off into infinity. It’s not like he’d never spent significant time away from home before, but everything seems so much more distant when placed out of reach.

The bus turns a corner through the rise between two mountain peaks and all of a sudden the city sprawls before them, all the way down to an ocean glistening in late afternoon sunshine.

 

 

His pack rolls off his shoulders and his body rolls onto his bed. Ikje stares at the ceiling and follows the cracks in the plaster that haven’t changed since he was last here two years ago, the posters on the wall faded but untouched. His room is like a time capsule, the similarities between now and the day he left almost unbearably eerie.

Sighing, Ikje stretches out, sliding a hand under his pillow as he goes to find his phone exactly where he left it. They don’t allow phones in the army and he didn’t trust Taegyun to keep it safe for when he was on leave and so it’s been sitting in his bedroom gathering dust. He can’t remember where he put the charger and he wouldn’t be surprised if it had broken of its own accord but he hits the power button out of habit.

And to his surprise the screen blinks into life.

It takes five minutes for the onslaught of bleeps and vibrations that signal text messages and missed calls to die down. Ikje opens his message folder excitedly but is disappointed to find that the last fifty or so texts are nothing but promotional spam for deals he’s too late to claim. Scowling, he deletes them one by one and tries not to take it too personally that people have stopped trying to get in contact with him, he supposes he wouldn’t waste precious credit on someone who he knew wasn’t going to reply.

It takes him ten minutes to work through the clutter to find a familiar name and when he does it takes him a moment to put it to a face. Min Yoongi, one of the people from Big Hit, one of the Not Namjoon people to be precise. A seventeen year old kid with a bad lisp and an attitude problem who had been biting at Ikje’s heels one way or another since they entered the final round of auditions. He was nice, in a grumpy, antisocial sort of way, but Ikje can’t for the life of him think why he would bother to keep in contact.

He opens the message and does a double take, “I miss you”, is all it says.

Yoongi misses him. Ikje stares blankly at the screen of his phone and wonders how on earth he’s supposed to respond. He hasn’t missed Yoongi these past two years, or dance practice or vocal training or unfairly long hours and strict diets. He hasn’t missed any part of being a trainee except for perhaps Namjoon and he liked Namjoon for a lot of reasons that had nothing to do with Big Hit. He wonders if he can get away with deleting the text and pretending it never happened and glances at the ‘sent’ date.

Almost eighteen months back. Yoongi doesn’t miss him, Yoongi missed him a long time ago. He’ll be older now, hopefully old enough to know that Ikje is the last person he should be missing in amongst the stresses of his schedule and hopefully with Ikje out of the way he’ll have managed to make more of himself than a sullen boy in the corner.

And if he hasn’t, Ikje’s sure Namjoon will tell him as much.

From out across the ocean the faint rumble of thunder signals the first rain of the year and from the kitchen Ikje’s mum shouts something about dinner being ready. He doesn’t feel the faintest shred of guilt as he deletes the text, Yoongi will have moved on and Ikje never missed him anyway.


	19. Stealing Through The Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namjoon is turned on my Yoongi's voice

It doesn’t happen every night, it doesn’t even happen every week, but it happens often enough and irregularly enough that Namjoon can never quite shake the tension from his shoulders as he climbs into bed. He lies awake straining his ears for the faintest sound to make sure that everyone else is asleep, and then he waits a little longer until he’s lulled into dreams by Seokjin’s gentle snores.  
  
And just when he’s about to drop off the edge of conciousness, it happens. Never a moment later.  
  
Namjoon never hears Yoongi get up and he never hears him cross the room. Usually he’s so close to sleep that he doesn’t even feel Yoongi lift the duvet and slip into bed with him, doesn’t register the hand sliding over his hip to rest just above the wasitband of his boxers.   
  
Then Yoongi starts to talk, loud enough to run the risk of someone waking up and catching them but not so loud as to pull Namjoon entirely back into the real world. Low and deliberate, he speaks directly into Namjoon’s ear; at first talking of mundane things - the next day’s schedule to celebrety gossip and everything that under normal circumstances Namjoon couldn't care less about. Yoongi's voice reverberates through the space between them, close enough for Namjoon to feel the every vibration in his ears and in his chest, and somewhere along the line his brain tricks him into focusing on Yoongi’s voice as opposed to his words.  
  
There’s nothing sincere between the two of them, Namjoon knows Yoongi only does it because he can, but be it the closeness of their bodies or the false intimacy of a shared duvet or psychological stimulants that Namjoon will never understand, they both know that Yoongi’s voice turns him on.  
  
From the moment the first sigh escapes Yoongi’s lips Namjoon’s nerves begin to scatter electricity just below his skin and his blood begins to quicken. Low and lazy, Yoongi's voice never fails to occupy every nook and cranny of Namjoon’s attention.  
  
It's like a drug that never quite achieves it’s full high. Once opening pleasantries are done with Yoongi will always move on to more obviously titilating subjects - stories of past sexual encounters and theoretical tales of what he’d do to Namjoon “if only we had the time. But we have to be up in the morning - better not risk it.”  
  
And so despite the hand lying torturously close to his inevtitable erection, Namjoon never gets off. He is left alone in his bed with the memory of Yoongi’s voice still thrumming through his eardrums and a gap in the duvet still warm from someone else's bodyheat; wondering if it’s just a dream and hoping that its not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a lil half arsed tbh. I put off writing it for ages then panic wrote it bc I felt guilty about leaving it for so long ://


	20. The Dank Dungeon Detention Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After one of Kyung's schemes gets found out, Jiho and Yoongi wind up taking the fall (Hogwarts AU)

"I hope you know that you owe me for this Jiho, you owe me BIG," Yoongi scowls at the bottom of the cauldron he’s been scrubbing for the past half hour. It’s coated with a thick layer of slime that he swears looks all too similar to the stuff that fills the gnome eating slug tanks down by the greenhouses though the recipe on the blackboard would indicate that it should be hippogryff mucus. 

Jiho pulls his head out of his fourth cauldron of the day and glares back across the room, “I think you’ll find I owe you jack shit,”

"I wouldn’t be stuck in detention every saturday till the end of term if it wasn’t for your hairbrained friend and his handbrained scheme. You owe me two months’ of saturdays,”

"Pretty sure Kyung’s as much your friend as," Jiho frowns at himself and backtracks, "Kyung’s your friend too,"

Yoongi gives a derisive laugh, “Park Kyung is not my friend,”

"Well you were there of your own free will…"

"I was only there because you said you had something special to show me,"

"Well what did you think I was going to show you in a disused bathroom stall?"

Yoongi looks up from his cauldron long enough to shoot Jiho a suggestive eyebrow wiggle and recieves an eye roll for his trouble,

"Yoongi, I promise you that I will never blow you in a school bathroom. Ever."

"Why not? It would be a whole lot easier than sneaking into each others common rooms all the time,"

"We aren’t always sneaking into each others common rooms,”

"You’re right, I’m always sneaking into your common room," Yoongi’s wand fires a jet of frustrated purple sparks at the slime covering the cauldron’s insides and with a sinking heart feels it harden under his gloves, "why is that exactly?"

"Because you’re a Gryffindor and I’m a Slytherin," Jiho sets the cauldron he’s been working on aside with a satisfied smile and moves onto the next. Yoongi scowls,

"I don’t see what that has to do with anything,"

"People come to Slytherins, not Slytherins to people,"

Yoongi blinks at the rubbery mess he’s made, “that doesn’t make any sense,”

"Yeah well neither does your face,"

The cauldron slips under Yoongi’s fingers, he scrambles to keep his hold on it and half a second later the both it and him are on the floor. For a second there is silence, then Jiho’s laughing. Yoongi thinks he sounds like a gargoyle having an asthma attack.

And then he remembers that Jiho really does have asthma and he’s off the floor and half way through the charm that relaxes his bronchi faster then even he was aware he could move,

"STOP!" Jiho weezes before Yoongi can utter the final syllable, "stop, I’m fine, I’m just laughing," he breathes deep "you’re such an idiot,"

Blushing, Yoongi tucks his wand into his sleeve and goes to pick up the cauldron, now lying upside down on the other side of the dungeon class room. If Jiho brings this up at dinner he’s going to go to make pains to ensure that the entire school knows about his Hello Kitty obsession by nine o’clock tomorrow morning; he reckons the pureblood crowd won’t be best amused by a collection of muggle artifacts cluttering up one of their numbers’ homes.

Then again, Jiho does a lot of things that most purebloods wouldn’t dream of, dating Yoongi for example. 

Well they’re not exactly dating, they’re making out and going to Hogsmead together and Yoongi’s sneaking into Jiho’s room on the regular and…

And ok maybe they’re dating, but every time Namjoon brings it up Yoongi denies everything. 

If they’re getting right to the botttom of the matter, it’s Namjoon’s fault that Yoongi’s wound up the Potions Department’s slave for the next two months. They’ve been friends since Namjoon crashed into Yoongi in his rush to catch the train on his first day and despite Yoongi’s assumption that clumsiness that powerful (Namjoon managed to break a prefect’s glasses not five minutes after setting foot on the Hogwarts Express) could only land them both in Gryffindor, the younger had been sorted off into Ravenclaw. And whilst that proved more than ideal for Namjoon’s surprising intellect, it did little to win him a decent circle of friends, in Yoongi’s opinion at least. 

It is at this point that Park Kyung inserts himself into the story. 

Park Kyung is one year Yoongi’s senior, two years’ Namjoons and Jiho’s oldest friend. He’s lecherous, opportunistic and one of the most infuriatingly intelligent people Yoongi has ever met, and if his antics had not brought Jiho into his life there’s no way he would have tolerated him for this long.

"Why is Kyung even in Ravenclaw?" Yoongi asks through gritted teeth as he attempts to wrestle the cauldron upright - it appears to have stuck itself to the floor,

Jiho shrugs, “why is Jung Hoseok in Slytherin?”

"Jiho, if you don’t understand why Hoseok is in Slytherin then you don’t know the first thing about him," Yoongi kicks the caundron but it doesn’t so anything more exciting that hurt his foot.

"Then might I propose to you, Min Yoongi, that you do not know the first thing about Park Kyung?"

"I don’t want to know the first thing about Park Kyung,"

"He’s not actually an arsehole you know,” 

"I don’t want to know,"

"Then don’t complain when you don’t understand,"

Yoongi flops down ontop of the unmovable cauldron and wipes sweat off his brow. Jiho mutters something over his wand and just like that, another cauldron is clean. 

Oh yeah, magic, Yoongi always forgets about that.

"Just…why was he making drugs on school property anyway?"

"They’re not drugs, they’re hallucinogenic attention enhancers," Jiho sounds all together too pleased with himself, Yoongi snorts,

"They’re fucking drugs, idiot,"

"Well as far as McGonagal’s concerned they’re hallucinogenic attention enhancers, and seeing as that’s the description keeping the pair of us from being expelled I’m going to stick to it."

"Still doesn’t explain why he was making them in the toilet, or why you wanted to go check up on him between classes for that matter I mean come on Jiho,”

"I had history of magic next, you’d have done the same thing in my situation. You’re just angry because Kyung wasn’t there,"

"He was there,”

Jiho grins and shakes his head, “he who knows the better invisibility spell gets to decide who was and was not there,”

Kyung knows a lot of invisibility spells, and good ones at that. Apparently he, Namjoon and Minwoo practice them once they’re done with the set work during charms, though Flitwick would no doubt be mortified to learn of some of the pranks he’s enabled. Of course no sooner had Yoongi and Jiho arrived to check up on Kyung’s latest project than a nosey ghost of a teacher past had called upon the help of one of her living counterparts, sentencing them to these ridiculous detentions, and Kyung had only to fall back on one of his trusty old invisibility spells to be removed from all blame. 

Snape suspects them, he knows Yoongi doesn’t have it in him to brew such a complex potion and Jiho has only ever been truly gifted as a beater and hex caster but he doesn’t have any proof that it wasn’t them and until he does they have to take Kyung’s punishment.

"Well my fault or not, I’m still gonna want a blowjob after we’ve finished this shit," Yoongi grumbles, testing a few simple unsticking charms on his cauldron, 

"Well you’ll have to look elsewhere for one because I am not going to be in a giving mood this evening," Jiho replies.

Yoongi doesn’t hear him. His cauldron is standing upright against the wall with the slime vanquished from it’s interior and he’s too busy wooping with delight to care about anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked for Suga/Zico so I made it a lil interesting


	21. Through The Wind And The Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi's on his way to Seoul for the chance of a lifetime (underground hipphop scene AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before they were picked up by Big Hit, Namjoon and Yoongi used the stage names Runch Randa and Gloss respectively

The train journey from Daegu to Seoul is murder on Yoongi’s spine. Whoever designed these seats didn’t have long distance travel in mind and in the unheated carriages he stores excess tension anywhere he can. 

The cold isn’t really what’s making Yoongi tense, but the old woman sitting next to him doesn’t need to know that. Tense is perhaps the wrong word for the cocktail of emotions that Yoongi’s feeling right now anyway - he’s aprehensive and exhausted and terrifed and most of all excited, all of which is held back by the fear that this is not going to go as well as he thinks it could. 

If Yoongi’s being honest with himself, there’s no way this is going to go as well as he likes to imagine it might. He tries to stay realistic but somewhere along the line his mundane imaginings of what will most likely be two days sitting in a windowless studio with a stranger who may or may not be a total arsehole become fantasies of Tiger JK swooping in and asking Yoongi to produce his next album. 

Shivering, Yoongi pulls his scarf further up his face. Runch Randa’s probably never even met Tiger JK. 

From somewhere within the many layers of Yoongi’s winter clothing his phone begins to buzz. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t answer it but when he’s so close to a make or break moment in his career, he knows he’d be made not to. Bracing himself against the cold, Yoongi unfolds his arms and delves through the greatest hits of his jumper collection from the past six years. 

"Hello?"

"Hey Gloss how’s it going?" Yoongi recognises the voice from tracks he has overplayed on his mp3 player, partly in preparation for today and mostly because he can recognise talent when he hears it,"

"Not too bad, train’s fucking freezing though,"

"Ahh sorry to hear that, I promise you the studio will be warm once you get here,"

"Yeah about that, what subway line do I need to get on when I arrive?"

"Don’t worry about it, my afternoon freed up I was gonna come down and get you myself,"

Yoongi’s eyes widen in alarm, “is that safe?”

"Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?"

In his mind, Yoongi had already decided that Runch Randa shouldn’t be able to move through Seoul without at least ten loyal fans trailing behind him. He’s seen the way people talk about him on hiphopplaya, he’s had a fairly substantial email exchange with the rapper-on-the-rise; Runch Randa always seemed overconfident and larger than life. The kind of person who magazines stalk and idol companies consider a thorn in the side of their profit margines.   
Then again, the guy on the other end of the phone doesn’t sound like he fits that description - Yoongi wonders where his prejudice ends and the facts begin. He shrugs, even though he knows Runch Randa can’t see him, “no reason,”

"Thanks so much for doing this by the way, I know it’s a bitch having to come all this way but I’m kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my beats,"

"It’s fine, I’ve been meaning to come see my relatives in Seoul anyway," it’s not completely a lie. Yoongi _does_ have relatives in Seoul and he _has_ been meaning to come to the capital, it’s just that the two facts don’t necessarily have anything to do with each other. He’s been dying to come up to Seoul and have a go at getting himself into the underground scene proper; Daegu is nice and his friends are talented enough but there’s no future for a high school drop out with nothing but some outdated audio software and an unrealistic dream to his name. When Runch Randa had contacted him in the wake of his most recent work with D Town asking if he would be able up to come to Seoul to work on a track or two for him, it had seemed too good to be true. 

Yoongi hopes that numb buttocks and freezing fingers are the only catch he needs to worry about in this venture.

"Ok well I gotta go if I want to get to you in time, I’ll be wearing black shorts and a Supreme hoodie," the phone line flickers for a moment and Yoongi realises that at the other end of the line Runch Randa is on the move.

"I know what you look like," Yoongi replies before he appreciates how creepy it makes him sound. Luckily Runch Randa just laughs,

"I knew you were a fan,"

And before Yoongi can protest, he hears a hasty ‘see ya later’ and the line goes dead. Out of the window the city is approaching fast and just for a second Yoongi let’s himself imagine that he’s coming home.


	22. Overflow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namjoon wants more from Yoongi, but there's too much there to fit

Yoongi doesn’t fit into the spaces Namjoon makes for him, and for a while Namjoon wonders if the spaces he leaves are simply not big enough for a whole other person. In some ways, it’s easier to imagine the two of them fitting together in amongst identical restrictions of their free time - they share a home, they share their meals, in a very real sense they share a life without trying. 

And maybe not trying is the key, because more often than not Namjoon finds it is their proximity that warps them so that they cannot function as he wishes they could. Maybe Yoongi’s tired of him or maybe Yoongi’s just tired. Maybe Namjoon imagines the distant look in his eyes when he watches Yoongi out of the corner of his eyes, in the back of the van, the closest they will ever get to hiding, but he doesn’t think so. 

Luckily, people are not like busses: they do not have to be here or there. Some of them fall in between. Or maybe that’s unlucky, for Namjoon at least. 

"Are you and Yoongi…" the words die in Seokjin’s mouth. Namjoon feels his throat tighten, because _of course_ him and Yoongi, but Seokjin seems unsure. Him and Yoongi after dark in the studio, him and Yoongi on lazy sunday mornings when the others are out, him and Yoongi sitting in silence in the empty living room trying to figure out what to say. 

Well Namjoon is trying, Yoongi never seems to bother with much unless he has to. But there is music hidden on Yoongi’s phone that he has never let anyone else hear, no one else but Namjoon and even as their fingers slide over piano keys and computer controls (they are better in harmony than they are on their own) it feels like the effort of sharing secrets and glory should be worth it. 

It is worth it. It is. Namjoon cannot let himself forget that. 

For the sex alone it has to be worth it, the way Yoongi arches into every touch and praises God and satan in the same breath when he comes - it makes Namjoon feel invincible, it makes Namjoon feel like love is formed in the sweaty confines of a bunk too small for either of them. He has to pretend he doesn’t know that the pleasures of the body lie independant of the heart for it to work but the thrill of laying Yoongi out before him and working into him, again and again, strengthens his belief that this is something significant. It’s hard to argue with his racing pulse, and Yoongi always kisses him like he means it when they’re done. 

When Namjoon’s thoughts are clearer he wonders if sex is enough to mould Yoongi into the spaces he is so sure should fit him. He tries to readjust but its hard when there was never much space to begin with. Maybe that’s the problem, maybe there was never enough space for both of them to be happy in the first place. 

Yoongi walks in late to dance practice and doesn’t spare Namjoon a second chance. Namjoon thinks he should say something, or do something. 

Or leave. But he knows he’s going to keep trying to squeeze himself around Yoongi until he finds a form that fits them both; besides, Yoongi’s probably just tired.


	23. Fish Out Of Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seokjin and Hyosang are all kinds of clueless (Hogwarts AU)

The train is just south of Manchester when Hyosang jerks awake. At first he thinks he must have hit his head on the window dozing off but as he raises a hand to his forehead to rub away the pain, someone drops into the seat opposite him. 

Hyosang blinks at the countryside rushing past them - his head doesn’t hurt after all. 

"Sorry, I thought you were asleep,"

Hyosang glances over at the boy on the other side of the carriage, “I was,”

"Oh. Sorry,"

Hyosang can’t think of anything to say, and judging by the way the other boy is staring panic stricken at the floor he can’t either. Awkward silence is not what Hyosang was hoping to fill his first Hogwarts Express ride with, hence the empty carriage - he’d rather talk to no one than struggle through strangers in an attempt to find someone who has something more interesting to say than mumbled pleasantries.

The problem of course is that when you’re eleven, it’s hard to think of anything more interesting to say yourself. 

"Are you," the other boy starts, then swallows like he’s chasing the words back down, he doesn’t even raise his eyes.

"I’m a first year," Hyosang knows where this is going, "Jin Hyosang, nice to meet you,"

"Kim Seokjin," the boy reaches over to meet Hyosang’s extended hand and his grip is surprisingly strong, "I’m a Year Seven…I’m in first year too" 

They each fall back into their seat with an exagerated sigh. Seokjin’s eyes flick up to the luggage rack above Hyosang’s head and he points at Oscar’s cage, 

"What’s with all the owls?"

"What?"

"Everyone has an owl," Seokjin frowns for a moment but then a horrible thought clearly occcurs to him as his mouth drops open. aghast, "they’re not a requirement are they? I swear the list said they were optional,"

"Owls are optional," Hyosang says slowly, "people bring their own because they like knowing the bird carrying their post. The school has owls you can use though, you’ll be fine,"

Seokjin stares at Hyosang like he’s grown an extra head, “the post? You mean like the letters we got about being accepted to…to Hogwarts in the first place?”

"Well yeah I mean how else do you get mail?" Hyosang laughs and reaches into his pocket for a chocolate frog. By the time he’s got it open the look of bewliderment is still frozen on Seokjin’s face. 

A thought occurs to Hyosang, “are you muggleborn?”

Seokjin shows no sign of understanding

"Are you the first wizard in your family?"

"Oh!" Seokjin looks astonishingly relieved, "yes. I didn’t even know I had any magic until I got my letter and one of the teachers from the school came to explain all about Hogwarts to my parents, I just thought I was lucky,"

"Wow…so you’ve like, always lived without magic?"

Seokjin knods, “yeah. Except for the stuff I used to do by accident, Mrs McGonagall says that they’re gonna teach me how to control it though,”

Hyosang lets out a long, loud peal of laughter that has Seokjin freshly confused again in no time, 

"What’s so funny?"

"M….Mrs McGonagall!"

"Did I say it wrong?"

"I’ll say, she’s _Professor_ McGonagall,”

Seokjin frowns, “Professor? I thought professors only worked at universities?”

"What are universities?" it’s Hyosang’s turn to look confused as Seokjin stares back at him in horror,

"Wizards don’t have universities?"

"Well I dunno, tell me what they are and I’ll let you know,"

"They’re a place you go after you’ve finished school so you can learn more and get a better education,"

Hyosang nearly chokes on a mouthful of chocolate frog, “no we don’t have those,”

Seokjin opens his mouth for what Hyosang predicts is going to be a long and boring speech concerning the importance of bettering oneself through education and decides that it would be prudent to cut him off before he can get started, 

"So what have you done with your magic?"

Seokjin’s mouth snaps shut, he looks a little put out and not a little confused by the question, “you mean like since I got my wand?”

"No, before that. I’ve heard some muggle borns do really crazy shit with their magic before the Ministry tracks them down,"

"What’s the Ministry?"

Hyosang shakes his head, “that’s not important! I wanna know what you did to get yourself noticed,”

"Oh. It wasn’t anything much really, I was just using it to cheat at Mariokart. Although I didn’t know I was doing it so I’m not sure it really counts as cheating…"

"What’s Mariokart?"

At first Seokjin’s expresssion is blank, then shocked, then concerned “you don’t know Mariokart?”

Hyosang shakes his head

"It’s a videogame,"

Hyosang shrugs.

Seokjin lets out a traumatised wail and collapses along his bench,

"No videogames?" he hisses, "are you trying to tell me that a complex magical society manages to exist in tandem and yet seperate from the rest of the world, keeping absolute cover for hundreds of years and not one of you wizards was smart enough to invent videogames?"

"I guess not," Hyosang pulls out another chocolate frog. He considers offering one to Seokjin but he seems to be far too busy bemoaning the state of wizarding society for sweets, "what are they?"

"They’re games played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a monitor or other display,” Seokjin whispers from his disadvantaged position, hunched over backwards in his seat. Hyosang thinks it looks rather uncomfortable and that Seokjin’s explanation doesn’t make sense, 

"Speak English," 

Seokjin sits up and suddenly he’s all business, “ok so you have a computer or a TV or maybe a gameboy or something-“

"What’s a computer?"

Seokjin stares at Hyosang like he’s a lost cause, “if you don’t have computers and you don’t have videogames then what do you have?”

"We have quiddich, and magical chess," Hyosang pauses, "hey wait a moment, you’re a wizard too you don’t get to pull that ‘us and them’ shit,"

"Oh you know what I mean," Seokjin snaps, reaching into his suitcase and pulling out a quill and parchment, "now listen carefully I have some important things to explain to you."

Seokjin’s scruffy handwriting is a testament to his lack of familiarity with quils and he talks too fast when he’s excited, but by the time the train pulls into Hogsmead Hyosang thinks it might be worth asking his parents for a Wii for Christmas.


	24. If It's Not Yet Alright, It Is Not Yet The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donghyuk knows it's hard on Junhee, but he also knows that talking about it doesn't help

Donghyuk’s apartment isn’t really clean enough for guests, but he figures that Junhee’s spent enough time hanging out with young men functioning on significantly less parental influence than is advisable to not be too shocked. He hastily wipes the glass he’s about to give her on his shirt and pulls two bottles of soju out of the fridge before joining her in the living room. 

Well, calling it a ‘living room’ might be giving the space a little too much credit - there’s a couch and a TV and no one sleeps in here unless Namjoon needs to escape his gilded cage for a day or two, but it doesn’t feel very homely. The landlord won’t get Donghyuk put anything on the walls and the bright white paint makes it look clinical, every scuff, scraps and stain staring judgementally back at the tennants. 

Donghyuk wants to pain it all green - but apparently that’s not allowed. 

He plops down next to Junhee who’s sloached down one end of the couch fiddling with the TV remote, “give that here,” he mumbles, and turns on to a late night music show rerun. 

Turning down the volume, Donghyuk passes Junhee a glass, “wanna drink?”

"Always," she takes the glass and waits for Donghyuk to fill it up, her unfocued eyes still aimed at the TV. 

"Cheers," they each down their shot just as a girl group Donghyuk doesn’t recognise leaves the stage and boygroup he does recognise enters,

"They look ridiculous," Junhee scoffs as Topp Dogg begin their stage dressed head to toe like 1992 Seo Taiji wannabes. Back to the old school indeed. 

Donghyuk snorts, “Hyosang wasn’t lying when he said they had to wear their trousers backwards,”

"I know the stylist responsible - trust me they probably thought it was a really high brow fashion statement,"

"In my experience stylists tend to think everything they do is a high brow fashion statement,"

"The fuck do you know about stylists?" Junhee gives him a playful shove and waves her glass at him to be refilled,

Donghyuk tries and fails to shove her back and then obligues, “I spend more time backstage at music shows than you might think,”

"More time than me no doubt,"

"Probably," Donghyuk doesn’t know if he’s supposed to keep smiling, but he does so all the same. He’s not up for a serious talk tonight.

Junhee glances back at the TV. Her smile doesn’t falter either but it’s easy to see that she’s not really feeling it. 

Junhee doesn’t really talk about it but Donghyuk knows it’s hard for her. Hell, everyone knows it’s hard on her; watching Hyosang debut a year after her only to prove more popular both as an idol and an underground artist. The one possitive she always manages to find in her circumstance is that she doesn’t have to deal with her failure to ever gain new ground in the wake of a cripplingly brutal schedule, but Donghyuk thinks she could use a few more dates in her diary as a distraction if nothing else. 

And of course, if EvoL promoted half as regularly as Topp Dogg there’s no way they’d be so far down the nugu list. But Donghyuk knows that saying as much doesn’t make anything any better.

"Noona, I think they’re showing Show Me The Money reruns on Mnet tonight. We could watch Hunchul make a tit out of himself,"

"Sounds better than watching any more of this shit," Junhee scoffs as Topp Dogg leave the stage. 

Donghyuk flips the channel and sure enough, Hunchul is wearing his ridiculous bright blue bucket hat and looking like a kicked puppy. If he hadn’t come so close to winning it would be a demoralising sight but as things stand it seems perfectly acceptable to laugh.

Giggling, Junhee moves over to rest her head on Donghyuk’s shoulder, “he did ok for himself,”

"Yeah," Donghyuk throws an arm around her shoulder, "we’re all gonna do ok in the end"

"Even if it takes till we’re fourty?"

"Even if it takes forever, we’re gonna be alright one day."


	25. Slow Down Before You Kill Us All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoseok's built for greater things and learning how to settle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of abusive situations

JYP was twelve hours of dance practice and six hours of vocal coaching, school was crammed in wherever you could find the space for it and sleep was an untold luxury. The tutors would scold you till every shred of self esteem was sucked from your talent and they beat you if you ever dared talk back. 

It was hard, brutal work, but it was living the dream. And one way or another, every successful trainee puts in too much blood, sweat and tears in their rise to the top to back down at the final hurdle. 

Hoseok watches Seokjin from the corner of his eye throughout dance practice. He does not dance with ambition and that is far, far more irritating than his lack of limb coordination. He has not struggled to be here, he has not suffered, he’s worse than Taehyung. 

"Hoseok you’ve been off beat all morning," Jimin snaps.

He’s right, Hoseok has let himself become distracted by a glitch in the system. In any good science fiction movie he would pay dearly for ignoring it, but this is not science fiction. This is the hyper-real, superspeed world of the trainee idol, and if Seokjin isn’t competition then he’s hardly worth being called a distraction. 

 

Big Hit is dance practice if you think you need it, vocal coaching whenever you want it, studio time as often as possible and sleep is an untold luxury. The tutors praise you if you’re good and verbally guillotine you if you’re anything less, and sometimes there are whispers through the halls of misbehaving trainees being taken outback and hit hard enough to see the stars. 

Here they are trying to build a team. Hoseok isn’t used to this format, the idea that he has been thrown into the ring with people he is honestly expected to debut with is a mind bending gear change that he quickly realises he is poorly equipt to deal with. He’s too used to being cutthroat, to stamping out weak links as soon as they show their true colours.

This is not teamwork, this is something that the other trainees do not recognise as anything other than open hostility. When Hoseok talks down to Namjoon for skipping out on dance practice, the others rally; when Hoseok scoffs at Donghyuk missing the same note three consecutive times in vocal coaching, the others rally; when Hoseok shares a few choice words with Hunchul when he shows up late for recording sessions the others rally. 

When Hoseok is passed out on the dance studio floor, too starved and exhausted to stay standing for another moment, he wakes to find that someone has thrown a blanket over him and left two convinience store rice cakes by his head. He eats them alone, wrapped in the blanket, sobbing for reasons he cannot fully understand. 

Hoseok is so unused to having to care, and so unused to being cared for.

The kneejerk reaction to treat every new object in the trainee matrix is hard to breed out, however. Hoseok is the unstable king pin in the building of their team - things are fundamentally structured around Namjoon but without Hoseok’s approval the changes can never intergrate. This is something that the Team understands, and outsiders do not. 

Seokjin does not expect special treatment but his disadvantaged position demands it. Namjoon and Yoongi have known no other trainee life and the empathy comes naturally to them, but the other kids are far more flexible than Hoseok - it makes him wonder if it is him or Seokjin who is the outlier in this situation. 

The brainless boy with the natural goodlooks or the streamlined racing car, product of the idol industry that Hoseok has become - so bizarrely misplaced. He tries to remember what iit felt like to not fit in, but can only recall a calm understanding that everyone else was doing things wrong. 

He still thinks everyone else is doing things wrong, he’s just gotten better at understanding that he is not always right. 

 

Hoseok learned to rap the way he learned everything else - through hardwork and sleepless nights in aid of a better future. At the end of the day it’s just talking, just talking with a rhythm, just talking with a rhythm and a rhyme and a purpose. 

Rapping is hard. Namjoon thinks it’s fun. Hoseok learned early on that the people who find the hard things fun are the people it is not even worth trying to hold back. 

Yoongi also thinks rapping is fun, and production, but mostly he thinks long lazy Sunday mornings in which he lies in bed and does nothing are to be treaured. He is going to be a blip in the system, the kind of person who should have been disposed of on day one but has discovered a loophole - an idol by a technicality. Some days Hoseok has to remind himself that he is not here to erradicate Yoongi’s kind, but it can be hard, even once they’re friends going to the top together, it can be hard. 

 

Mutually assured destruction - it’s a bitch. Seokjin benefits from it as much as the rest of them and yet they all know that the ground is perfectly stable without him. Now that he’s here the ground will shake, then still and hopefully it will be stronger than ever before. 

Or maybe Seokjin will be one grain of rice too many on the precariously balanced scale that they have become - maybe he’ll have to go, maybe Hyosang will have to quit, maybe they’re not worth it after all. It’s terrifying, but no one’s future is ever particularly certain in this industry anyway. 

That’s something Hoseok understands a whole lot better than the rest of them - trainees are not made to suffer for the twisted pleasures of the higher ups, or as a means of casting out the weak. They are simply being trained to live in fear of the world they have worked so hard to build falling apart around them, in the blink of an eye. It could happen to any of them, it isn’t going to get better any time soon. 

 

"Can you help me?" Seokjin asks

Hoseok knows what he’s asking for, but he always loved the thrill of playing coy, “help with what? The dance?”

"With everything,"

It’s impossible not to laugh. How is he supposed to explain that he doesn’t know how, that for all the distance he’s covered and all the lessons he’s learned he’ll never know how to pass them on. That kind of teaching requires a indepth understanding of how he came to be the person that he is today and if he knew how he learned it all, he would know how to unlearn it. 

Hoseok doesn’t know how to unlearn anything, Hoseok doesn’t know shit.

"No point in teaching you everything, they’re training you for everything else,"

And no matter where you go in this industry, that at least is a universal constant.


	26. Punch Drunk Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoseok wants to play drinking games and Taehyung can't bring himself to say no

Taehyung doesn’t really like alcohol, it always leaves a funny taste on the back of his tongue and after a couple of beers he starts feeling woozy. 

The wooziness is apparently the point, or so Hoseok would have him believe. Personally, he can’t understand the appeal; when they were in America he got really drunk, just once, the only time he’d ever been properly out of it. The next day he woke up on the kitchen floor with no memory of the night before and no way of getting to the bathroom before he puked. After that, he decided that him and alcohol were done with each other. 

Until Hoseok comes in one evening, giggling like a school girl and harbouring three bottles of soju that is. Taehyung doesn’t really want to drink it, but it’s so rare for it to just be the two of them, alone in the dorms, and Hoseok is so excited. 

And Taehyung has such a hard time saying no to him. He’s always had a bit of a soft spot for Hoseok, but recently it’s been getting worse. 

"Can I open my eyes yet?"

"I’m nearly done,"

"Hyeeeoongg! I’ve been sitting here for half an hour already,"

"It’s been ten minutes Tae, be patient,"

"I have been patient, for ten minutes!”

"Well you can stop now,"

"What do you mean?"

Hoseok laughs and nudges Taehyung’s shoulder, “I’m done silly,”

Taehyung opens his eyes to see that Hoseok has placed the dorm Jenga set on the coffee table, bricks neatly alligned and ready to play. He doesn’t get it.

"I don’t get it,"

"It’s drinking Jenga!" Hoseok beams, "I’ve modified it!"

Taehyung blinks, “I still don’t get it,”

"C’mon, I’ll pour you a drink and show you how to play," Hoseok leaps over to the other side of the table. He cracks the cap off the first bottle and then passes it to Taehyung to twist the seal as he fills two shot glasses and hands one over.

They pass the cap back and forth, flicking the tail until Taehyung manages to send it spinning off under their sorely underused bookcase. Hoseok cackles in delight and takes his drink as punishment before leaning over and removing the first brick from the Jenga tower,  
"Take a shot," he says, flipping the brick over to see the underside. Taehyung doesn’t understand what he means but he doesn’t complain when Hoseok pours himself another drink without expecting him to drink his. 

Hoseok nods at Taehyung, “your turn,”

Taehyung plays it safe, poking out a central brick from the third row down. The tower remains unharmed and he is free to turn his brick over to see what Hoseok is playing at, 

_Person to your left - drink!_

It’s written in Hoseok’s sharp, neat handwriting. Comprehension dawns on Taehyung’s face, 

"The Jenga tells you how to drink!"

"Precisely,"

"That’s clever," Taehyung turns the brick for Hoseok to see, "you lose again hyeong,"

"AGAIN? Ah I have no luck today," Hoseok’s smiling far too gleefully as he pours himself another shot for Taehyung to take him seriously.

Hoseok draws another brick and has to take another shot, Taehyung draws another brick and they both have to drink, Hoseok draws his third brick and his smile takes on a maliciously gleeful tone,

"What is it?" Taehyung smiles though he has a horrible feeling that this is the point at which the evening is going to stop being fun for him.

Hoseok turns the brick so Taehyun can see, wiggling his eyebrows menacingly

_Make a rule_

Well that doesn’t sound so bad.

"What does it mean?" Taehyung grins despite himself, there’s something undeniably charming about Hoseok when he’s having fun and it’s infectious,

"It means that I get to make a rule,"

"What kind of rule?"

"Any kind of rule! I could decide that you have to drink double shots only for the rest of the game,"

Taehyung’s smile vanishes in an instant. He supposes he should have known better than to trust this would be a positive development.

"Ooooorrrr……I could decide that you have to refer to me as ‘your majesty’ for the rest of the evening and if you mess up you have to drink,"

Hoseok leans across the table and whispers, “or I could decide that at any time you’re allowed to remove an item of clothing in lieu of taking a shot. BUT! You have to decide which you're doing before you pick your brick,”

"So we’re stripping for the rest of the game?"

"Only if you want to,"

"Sweet,"

Taehyung doesn’t mind being naked around his bandmates. The flat is so small and their schedules are so packed that staying decent all the time is nigh on impossible. Besides, it’s just skin, he doesn’t really understand why everyone makes such a big deal out of it in the first place. 

 

Half an hour later and it’s a miracle that the tower is still standing. They’re in various states of inebriation and undress; Hoseok fairly drunk having only removed his shirt and socks, Taehyung slightly tipsy sitting in nothing but his boxers.

Hoseok has decided that this round he’s going to wave his shot and remove another layer. Taehyung watches him place a brick precariously on top of the highly unstable tower before pulling his vest over his head and flopping back to the floor. 

Hoseok is a rosy cheeked, loose lipped, giggly drunk; peering round the Jenga tower to where Taehyung is trying desperately to focus on the game at hand. 

The thing about Jung Hoseok, Taehyung has decided, is that he’s way more distracting than anyone gives him credit for. He’s muscular without being ripped, pretty without going flower boy and right now his hair is temptingly ruffled without being messy. All unintentional of course, Hoseok is subtle. 

The devil’s in the detail, and tonight Taehyung is feeling observant. Maybe it’s the alcohol, he’s not had much, just enough to give him a slight buzz, only where it normally just makes him feel disoriented, tonight he feels bold. 

"S’your turn," Hoseok mumbles. If Taehyung has been staring, then he’s too drunk to notce.   
Taehyung reaches forward to take a brick from the bottom of the tower, knowing that there is no way it will have any structural integrety left once he’s done. Sure enough, the bricks begin to fall before he’s even fully removed it. 

Hoseok stares at the table for a moment, then he’s doubled over laughing like it’s the funnierst thing he’s ever seen, 

"What d’ya do that for? Could’a taken one from the top….would’a been fine…" his words are slurred from the alcohol and his carefully cultivated Seoul accent is begining to crack. It’s adorable, Taehyung laughs right along with him.

The final brick is still in Taehyung’s hand. Supposedly he has to take five shots one after the other as a penalty for making the tower fall but he doubts Hoseok is going to make him do it, but he’s not going to get away without at least taking the punishment for this brick.   
"What does it say?" Hoseok rests his head on the table and peers up at Taehyung, his sides still shaking slightly from laughing. 

Taehyung doesn’t look at the brick, he doesn’t even miss a beat, “kiss me,”

"I…I didn’t write that on any of them…"

"Does that mean you’re not going to do it?"

For a moment there is silence, Hoseok has stopped laughing and is staring at Taehyung slackjawed - possibly in disbelief, possibly just because he’s drunk.

Then he’s leaning over the ruins of the Jenga tower, reaching out to steady himself on Taehyung’s shoulder, 

"Of course I’m going to do it," he mumbles, his fingers twisting in Taehyung’s hair and closing the distance between their lips. 

Taehyung reaches out to cup Hoseok’s cheek and the brick falls from his fist to the pile below. He doesn’t know what it said but it doesn’t matter when Hoseok tastes so much better than alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk idk idk this is not my ship of choice or my situation of choice but someone requested it so I gave it my best shot...


	27. Learn To Love It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little healthy competition is good, but Jungkook's aiming way out of his league

Jungkook hears Namjoon raving about Kemy long before he ever meets her. Apparently she’s talented, trained by Zico, a breath of fresh air. Apparently she’s the Real Deal. 

It’s bizzare hearing Namjoon actively praise another idol rapper of his own free will. There’s no doubting that Jiho is better than he’ll ever be but Namjoon can barely find the time to praise Sangwon, yet alone some unknown rookie rapper with two mixtapes to their name. 

"She can’t be _that_ good," Jungkook snaps when he feels Namjoon has made his point well enough

Namjoon snorts, “how would you know?”

"If she was that good I would have heard of her. She’d have been underground or something,"

"Because you were so well known before you debuted?"

"You saying I’m good?" Jungkook smirks, shoving Namjoon’s shoulder as hard as he can get away with. 

"I am. But she’s a hell of a lot better than you,"

And in Jungkook’s opinion, the gauntlet is laid down there and then

 

The first thing Jungkook does when he has a moment to himself is take to the internet to find out just how bad the situation is, 

"Fuck," he mutters as First starts up and a girl that he can only assume is Kemy begins to rap. She’s not perfect, but she’s actually rapping and not just saying company prepared lines over a beat. 

The dorm door swings open, “what are you doing?” Yoongi sounds tired enough to sleep standing,

"Checking out this new rapper Namjoon was going on about earlier,"

"Any good?"

"I guess,"

"Pull your headphones out and let’s have a listen then."

A second rapper, noticably less talented that Kemy has taken over so Jungkook selects the first video he can see with her name in the title from the Youtube suggestions, pulls his headphones out and turns up the volume. 

And as luck would have it, this track is better.

"Shit," Yoongi says, rubbing his eyes, "she’s good. What crew is she with?"

"No crew. She’s an idol trainee,"

"Bullshit,"

"I’m serious, they’re called A.Kor"

Yoongi yawns loudly and collapses onto his bed, “you’re lucky I’m too tired to fact check you’re ridiculous claims right now.”

Rolling his eyes, Jungkook switches his phone to silent and stands up to get the lights, “honestly hyung don’t you trust me?”

Yoongi is asleep before the lights go out.

 

It’s two days before Jungkook hears about the scandal. Work tends to take him out of it and he’s become used to getting all the news late, to being told nothing but the essentials by his managers. But still, it irks him that he didn’t know sooner. 

"Have you been keeping up with the Do The Right Rap contest, hyeong?" Jungkook asks Namjoon in the most offhand manner he can manage. 

Namjoon shakes his head, “nope,”

"That girl rapper you showed me is in it,"

"Which one?"

"Kemy,"

"Huh," Namjoon’s eyebrows twitch in what looks suspiciously like irritation, "how’d she do?"

"She…err…she dissed Park Bom,"

Like a whip, Namjoon snaps to attention. He’s unmistakably angry, 

Jungkook flinches in surprise, “what?”

"Oh it’s alright for some I suppose," Namjoon says, then stalks off muttering something about ‘the last time I was ever given complete free reign’. 

Blinking, Jungkook watches him go wondering exactly which nerves he managed to touch accidentally before returning his attention to his phone and playing the track again. 

Maybe he doesn’t agree with everything she says, but he can’t deny that Kemy’s way with words goes a long way to convincing him that she’s right. 

 

They meet at the most awkward time. A.Kor are leaving the building in a rush on their way to another schedule and Bangtan preparing to take to the stage. Jungkook rounds the corner, ahead of the pack and moving far too fast. 

He nearly crashes into her. 

"H-hey," Jungkook stares down at Kemy with wide eyes. It’s a shock seeing her up close and personal, he’s become so focused on her music that he’d half forgotten she was a real person. More than real, she’s vibrant, grinning ear to ear. 

She’s pretty, and Jungkkook has no idea how he could have forgotten something so important.

"Err…hi?" Kemy laughs, stepping aside and moving past him before the rest of A.Kor can catch her up. Jungkook’s eyes follow her till she disappears around the corner and Taehyung comes into view. 

"You know her?"

Jungkook grins, “not yet”.


	28. Parallel Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The clouds can't make up their mind

Free time is the bane of Namjoon’s existance. They’re supposed to sleep, they’re supposed to go home, they’re supposed to fall back into the arms of their family and pretend that they are normal people for a few days.

Namjoon sits on his bed at home watching the sky outside his window; grey and uninviting. It’s been threatening to rain all day but hasn’t quite managed it. His mum had wanted to go for a walk or go to the beach or something but but the threat of a downpoor is too great and so they’re stuck inside waiting for something to happen, blinking up an indescicive clouds holding them all in limbo. 

 

"You have to choose, one way or the other. You’re not gonna get them to compromise," Donghyuk’s eyes are glued to his phone but Namjoon knows his attention is firmly on the conversation at hand. They wander through the corridoors of school like they don’t have classes to attend, enjoying the early afternoon sunlight in peace and quiet. 

Namjoon really doesn’t need to worry about getting to class, when school is done for the day he’ll head off to the various hagwons that are assuring his parents his grades will stay sky high. They are exhausting and challenging and the work his tutors set him is leaps and bounds ahead of what the mainstream school system will provide. He could use a rest, Donghyuk on the other hand…

"You don’t have to skip class just because I am y’know," Namjoon jostles Donghyuk’s shoulder, "I’m sure you won’t be able to teach yourself the netire year’s syllabus the night before finals. 

Donghyuk looks up from his phone grinning, “nah I’ll be ok, you’ll look after me,”

"Yeah?"

"Yhup,"

"And how am I gonna do that?"

Donghyuk hitches up his backpack, “well either you’re gonna be a super genius businessman or a super genius musician,”

"Or you and me could be super genius musicians together,"

"You’d be tthe super genius, and I’d be the musician," Donghyuk cackles. 

"Oi! I can do the music thing, I wouldn’t have gotten an offer from an actual music company if I didn’t, right?"

Namjoon watches Donghyuk’s expression switch from excitable to serious in a heartbeat, and for a moment he thinks he said the wrong thing, 

"No you wouldn’t have," Donghyuk says, "but you’re not gonna get signed unless you want to, so what’s it gonna be? Real life or something different?"

When put like that, the choice seems obvious, but Namjoon thanks his lucky stars he knows it’s not that simple. 

 

Namjoon’s life exists in two entirely seperate halves: what is, and what could have been. Sometimes he thinks that he shouldn’t let himself remain so attached to a life that never happened but even as he tries to convince himself that whatever might have been had he not stuck with Bangtan is inconsequential, he knows it’s impossible. 

The life he never had is everything, it is how people define him. In the seemingly never ending ocean of idols struggling to stand out Namjoon’s identifying feature is that if he wasn’t here he’d be somewhere else, he’d be in the underground, he’d be signed to a big name hiphop label, he’d be sitting in Donghyuk’s living room laughing with his friends…

And those friends are doing so well. Ikje’s always had something of a fanbase, Hyosang’s on the rise and Hunchul’s new found fame is helping them all. All these years Namjoon has told himself that he made the right choice, that going to Big Hit meant he had the best of both worlds, fame and creativity. Only now there’s nothing new to write about and despite the constant promotions no one really knows who they are. 

Hunchul had a number one single, he’s been a top search on Naver, how’s that for fame? Meanwhile Namjoon’s staring up at an endless sea of grey trying to remain objective as he works out whether or not he made the right choice. 

Maybe he should have waited just a little longer, maybe he should have been a cloud. 

His phone buzzes and Namjoon opens it up to find a blurry selca of Donghyuk sent from Minwoo’s phone. 

_were drnuk_

Namjoon’s face is blank as he replies: _it’s the middle of the day_

_yea but fuk it_

_we jus wante d boooooooze_

_ur free rnt u_

_why arent u here_

_u should be here_

_i miss u_

_i se e u all teh time but i miss u_

_u shud be here_

Namjoon drops his phone without replying but it keeps on buzzing, steadily, for the next hour. He wants to reply, but he can’t work out what he wants to say. 

The truth is that Namjoon _should_ be with Donghyuk and the rest of them, in another life he would be, a life so proposterously close that if he closes his eyes he can almost believe that he’s there right now, drinking in Ikje’s apartment at three in the afternoon. But he doesn’t let the fantasy get ahead of itself, that way madness lies. 

Namjoon stares out of the window and wonders how long it would take for a single cloud to seperate itself from the dense blanket and reform itself into some recognisable shape. Like an animal, or a continent, or a familiar face. 

And eventually darkness will fall, and the clouds will still have not decided to rain.


	29. Running In Heels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinhee's so much better at this than Hoseok

"Kick his ass unnie!" Jiyeon screams from the sidelines.

Jinhee laughs through the ringing in her ears as she salutes her, “right you are leader!”

Across the practice hall, Hoseok is in deep discussion with Jimin and Jungkook, heads bowed and speaking in rapid fire whispers. Every now and then one of them gets a little to loud and snapshots of satoori slip out; it’s adorable, even if it does make it a little hard to keep up. 

"I think it’s gonna be a while before we get started," Jinhee says, plopping herself down next to Jiyeon, "I feel like we should be discussing battle tactics too,"

"Why? You’re better than any of them without trying," Jiyeon sticks her nose in the air quite on purpoose, "battle tactics are for people who can’t win by brute force,"

"Yeah but the whole point is brains winning over brawn,"

"Sometimes an opponent is too strong for any amount of brains," Jiyeon flashes Jinhee a wicked grin, "besides, those three have barely got a brain between them,"

The pair of them break into peals of giggles as the boys break their formation and Hoseok steps out into the centre of the floor, 

"I’m ready!"

"We’ll see about that," Jinhee jumps up to meet him in the field, "Jimin, you handle the music,"

Jimin just barely manages to catch the ipod she throws him befor eproceeding to fumble with the wire that connects it to the speakers. Jinhee can practically hear Jiyeon rolling her eyes. 

"Ahh, noona it’s not too late to back down you know," Hoseok is beaming ear to ear, but Jinhee knows him too well to really believe he’s that confident, 

She smiles as sweetly as she can manage, “no, it’s not, you’re free to go any time!”

"BURN!" 

"Jiyeon please…"

Jimin finally get’s the right jack plugged into the right hole and with very little warning the music starts. Jinhee settles back on her heels and nods to Hoseok, 

"You first"

 

"I don’t get it," Hoseok takes an almightly slurp of his milkshake. They’re alone now, sitting on the steps of the practice building enjoying the privacy that can only be found at 4am. 

Jinhee shrugs, “it’s not a big deal,”

"But it is, it’s a huge deal. I get people telling me how talented I am every day and I get to travel all over the world to dance and I just…get all this attention. But you’re so much better than me and you’re let out once in a blue moon to remind people that female idols can dance too,"

"It’s not just me Hoseok, loads of female idols can dance,"

"Then why don’t they," Hoseok looks equal parts confused and frustrated, 

"Because…" Jinhee knows why, and she’s thankful that so far she hasn’t been hampered by the same handicaps as so many of her peers. It’s all so obvious to her that sometimes she forgets that not everyone gets to see things from her perspective, 

"Hoseok have you ever tried walking in heels?"

Hoseok shakes his head

"You should give it a go sometime,"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything," Jinhee looks him straight in the eye, "walking in heels is hard, running in heels is impossible, and dancing in heels…"

Hoseok frowns, “so girls can’t dance because they have to wear heels?”

"Basically. I mean look at SNSD, they could only pull off the I Got A Boy choreo wearing flats,"

"So why don’t companies just ditch the heels?"

Jinhee shakes her head, “they can’t Hoseok, the heels are all part of the image, and the short shorts, and the sexy winks, and the submissive sexiness. If you want to do well you can never stray too far from the basic formula,”

"It’s the same with all idol groups though," Hoseok snorts, "we’re all just variations on a theme,"

"Maybe, but don’t pretend the spectrum of success isn’t smaller for me"

A taxi passes them by at a snail pace and Hoseok tenses. Jinhee has watched him become increassingly more paranoid about fans since debut, and with good reason. Bangtan have plenty of them, it’s not at all unreasonable to expect that some day some of them will start crossing certain boundaries.

"Do you….can we go inside?" he breathes

Jinhee looks up at the barely black sky and wonders how long it will be before the sun begins to rise, “we should probably go home Hoseok,”

"No way I’m going home yet,"

"Aren’t you tired?"

"Of course, but I’m never gonna be better than you with that attitude,"

Grinning, Jinhee chases him back into the building, “you’re never gonna be better than me at


	30. Don't You Know It's Rude To Stare?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's nothing like Kim Taehyung to brighten up your day (coffee shop au)

Ikje runs his finger along the counter and inspects it for dirt. Nothing. Exactly as expected, exactly as it should be - he’s cleaned the shop three times today after all. 

Still though….maybe he should clean it all once more…

With an almighty sigh Ikje crashes his head into the counter, the shop doesn’t need cleaning, but he’s bored enough that scrubbing down tables for the fourth time today seems like a favourable alternative to sitting by the coffee machine making himself an infinite number of caramel lattes. 

That’s one saving grace - at least his manager isn’t around to control his coffee consumption. 

The door to the cafe opens and Ikje looks up, half expecting to see Hyosang arrive two days early for his next shift but low and behold it is a customer. Ikje blinks at them in surprise, somewhere in the ocean of clean tables, he forgot that he sometimes has to deal with people.

It’s a boy, one of the students from the local university if the large book tucked under his right arm is anything to go by, though he’s not dressed like a typical student. He’s wrapped in a long black coat covering everything from his neck to his heavy boots and most of his face is obscured by a mask. He marches over to Ikje, pulling the mask straps off of his ears as he goes. 

"It’s freezing out there," the boy laughs as he gets the straps free and shakes out his blonde hair. He has a goofy grin, a slight eyesmile and a voice that sounds like it originates somewhere below the earth’s crust. 

It takes Ikje a moment for his brain to catch up as he sits there, staring up at the boy, slackjawed ad not sure what make of him. 

Customer. Coffee. Right. 

"What…um…how can I…what can i get you?"

"You blinked,"

"What?"

"You broke eye contact, you lost,"

Ikje frowns, “what?”

"We were having a staring contest,"

"No we weren’t,"

"Well I was,"

"Well…congrats on winning then," Ikje stands up off his chair in the hope of feeling less intimidated but the boy is rather tall and he’s left still staring up at him trying to work out how serious he is, "do you want anything to drink?"

"Hazlenut cappucino,"

"Sure, I’ll bring it over,"

Ikje takes his time with the coffee, doing what he can with his meagre artistic skills to make it look presentable. It’s not that he’s particularly trying to impress, but on days as slow as this who even knows if he’ll get to make another cup before closing time, so he makes it last. 

Besides, this customer is undeniably good looking and a decent cup of coffee can only increase his willingness to disclose his kakao ID. 

"There you go," he places the coffee on the table and follows the boy’s gaze as he looks up from his book, past the coffee and up to Ikje beaming,

"Thank you!"

"No problem, can I get you anything else?"

The boy seems to take this question very seriously and a frown of concentration descends upon his face. Ikje half wonders if he said the wrong thing but he’s begining to think that this guy doesn’t operate the same way as everyone else, 

"I was thinking," the boy says slowly, "that maybe we should have a rematch,"

Ikje draws a blank, “a rematch of what?”

"Our staring contest, I don’t think you were very well prepared last time,"

"Oh. _Ohh_ yeah sure,” Ikje smirks and takes the liberty of dropping into the seat opposite him, 

"I’m sorry, about earlier, I should have given you some warning,"

"Hey don’t sweat it, we’re gonna do it right this time," 

"I’m Taehyung by the way," the boy extends his hand across the table for Ikje to shake, 

"Ahh yeah we should probably know each other’s names before we do battle," Ikje suppresses a laugh, "nice to meet you Taehyung, I’m Ikje,"

They shake and then settle back into position,

"Ok close your eyes," Taehyung’s voice is amost a whisper, "I’m gonna count to three and then we’re gonna start, ok?"

"Ok,"

"1…2…3" 

Ikje’s eyes snap open and are immediately met with Taehyung’s big brown ones. There’s something rather childish and playful about them, even though the gravity of the situation is easily readable from his expression. 

A guy who takes starring contests seriously, and here Ikje is indulging him. 

Taehyung has one of those faces that’s easy to indulge. His nose is neat, his lips are full and his skin is clear. For a second, Ikje wonders what would happen if he ditched the starring contest and leaned in to kiss him, but just then Taehyung’s eyelids flicker and he snaps to attention, 

"You blinked!"

"Gaaaahhh!"

"I win this one," Ikje beams

Taehyung sighs dramatically but he’s smiling, smiling like when he first walked into the shop with happy creases forming at the corner of his eyes, “I guess you did, hyeo-“

Taehyung stops midsentence. Ikje looks around too find the cause of the problem but sees nothing, “you ok?”

"I never asked you how old you are!" Taehyung giggles, "maybe I’m _your_ hyeong,”

"Maybe, what year were you born?"

"1995,"

Out of nowhere, Ikje is set upon by a violent coughing fit and for the first time that day Taehyung looks unsettled, 

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah I just…you’re a bit younger than I thought you were,"

"Oh," Taehyung nods, "how old are you then?"

"I was born in ‘87,"

"Wow!" Taehyung laughs out loud, "you’re definitely the hyeong,"

"The ahjussi more like…"

"Nahh, hyeong will do just fine," Taehyung takes a long slurp of his coffee and comes up grinning with cappucinno foam coating his upper lip.

Ikje rolls his eyes and passes him a napkin, “what are you doing with the rest of your day anyway?”

"Well first I’m gonna challenge you to another staring contest," Taehyung wipes his mouth and resumes his battle position, "c’mon hyeong, best of three?"


	31. If Wishes Were Fishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seventh year is almost at an end, but Hogwarts still has a few surprises in store for Jungkook

It’s strange to think that this will be their last hurrah. Jungkook stands at the sidelines of the party and tries not too feel to detached from the moment, tries to stop himself from turning it into a picture postcard memory. 

Kyungmi drags each of the boys to the dancefloor in turn, she doesn’t mind if people don’t want to dance the night away but can’t bear the thought of anyone sitting alone all evening. Yugyeom is only too happy to wind his hips in time with hers but Chanwoo’s eyes grow wider than ever as she takes him by the hand, laughing all the way. 

Jungkook giggles into his butterbeer as Kyungmi throws her arms arounnd Chanwoo’s neck and sways her hips with gusto. She peeks over her traumatised victim’s shoulder to shoot Jungkook a wink that he returns - he knows he’ll be up there with her soon enough, pushing the boundaries of public decency. 

Him and Kyungmi always wind up getting a little raunchy after a a few shots of firewhiskey; half the school is convinced they’re fucking and the other half take their firm protests that they’re not as evidence of their homosexuality. 

They’re not fucking, and they’re not gay, though Jungkook can’t pretend he’s particularly straight either. Even now, he’s leaning up against the large tank of water at the back of the room of requirement (drunken party form) thinking that it’s far too empty. 

"I never really understood what this was for," Ikje crashes into Jungkook’s vision, bright green cocktail in hand,

Jungkook starts in surprise, glaring at Ikje when he has the audacity to burst out laughing in response,

"What are you talking about?" Jungkook grumbles,

Ikje reaches out to tap the glass of the tank, “this thing. What’s it for?”

"For fish, idiot,"

"The fuck do you need fish for?" Ikje shakes his head, "this was never around in my day,"

"It’s the room of requirement, it gives us what we need. If the party room needs a fish tank then the party room’s gonna have a fish tank,"

Jungkook pauses, struck by his own phrasing. He’d never thought about it like that before.

"You ok?" Ikje waves a hand infront of Jungkook’s face looking like he could care a little if this turns out to be serious, 

"Yeah…yeah I just…" Jungkook swallows, "Kyungmi, come here a minute,"

"I’m busy having fun!"

"This is important,"

Kyungmi rolls here eyes and comes trotting over to where Jungkook and Ikje are standing, “what’s up?”

"You know how the room of requirement gives you what you need," Jungkook starts, "like…whatever you need,"

Kyungmi shrugs, “yeah, so?”

"So two years ago it became a pretty standard feature of every incarnation of the room to have a fish tank standing at the back. A fish tank filled with salt water,"

"I’m still not following Kookie,"

"Two years ago, the tank first appeared two years ago,"

"yeah but that was because..." realisation dawns on Kyungmi and here eyes go wide, "hooooooly shit…you don’t think…?”

"Well I can’t see why else it would be here,"

"Guys," Ikje cuts in, he sounds alarmed, "I don’t mean to get in the way of your pointless chinwagging, but there’s something coming out of the pipe in there,"

Their gazes follow Ikje’s finger as he points to the pipe that feeds the tank. Sure enough, a pair of long, orange tentacles are curled around the lip, slowly pulling themselves forward. they’re followed by a third, a fourth, a fifth…

"Speak of the devil," Kyungmi mutters and Jungkook whoops in delight as the octopus pulls itself fully into the tank and propels itself around the perimetre as if it were doing a victory lap.

Ikje watches it bug eyed, backing away from the tank and muttering something about how he has toilets to clean on the fifth floor. Jungkook pays him no mind as Kyungmi laugs him out of the room, his eyes glued to the octopus now making its way to the top of the tank. 

Kyungmi taps Jungkook on the shoulder, “do you think he remembered to wear clothes?”

"Probably not,"

"Do you not think that’s going to be a problem?"

"Probably not,"

"Jungkook-" Kemy is cut off by the almighty thud made by the octopus pulling itself out of the tank and landing on the floor at Jungkook’s feet. The sounds of the party going on behind them hush as everyone’s attention is caught by the three metre long cephalopod. 

"What the hell is that?" Chanwoo squeaks. For a moment, Jungkook worries that the presence of a large octopus might set more than a few people on edge but then Yugyeom is laughing and stepping forward to take a closer look,

"It’s just an octopus, it’s not even as big as the squid in the lake. It probably just-WOAH!"

Yugyeom reaches out to touch one of the octopus’s tentacles at the exact moment that it decides it does not wish to be an octopus any longer. Some tentacles shrink inwards, others grow more substantial; a solid body begins to form with a torso and legs and a neck; the orange flesh fades, the fishy eyes become human and a patch of dusky blonde hair sprouts ontop of the newly formed head. 

Taehyung stands fully naked and dripping wet, blinking at Yugyeom as his eyes attempt to adjust to the light outside of the water, 

"Hey!" He grins, pulling his soggy fringe off his face, "ah, you all look so surprised to see me,"

Yugyeom smiles weakly, “just…surprised to see so much of you,”

"So much of me?" Taehyung frowns before examining his limbs in great detail. Once he’s conducted a thorough inspection he turns to Jungkook and speaks in his most serious voice, 

"Jungkook, I appear to be naked,"

"Yeah…I’d say that’s about right,"

"Do you have anything for me to change into?"

"I don’t…." Jungkook is about to suggest that he run back up to Gryffindor tower to retrieve an old set of robes when he remembers a loophole he has installed for just such an occassion as this, "follow me,"

"Get back on with the party kids!" Kyungmi just about manages not to laugh. Jungkook looks back over his shoulder at her as he leads Taehyung away and can’t help the blush that creeps into his cheeks when she winks at him and decides not to follow. 

"Just in here," Jungkook opens the door to the antechamber hidden behind a pillar at the back of the room of requirement. Earlier in the year he’d decided to test the waters of the fish tank himself and wound up with robes rather wetter than he’d like. The room had of course immediately offered up a solution in the form of a large supply of old clothing. Jungkook has since made sure to learn a few drying spells but the clothes remain all the same, presumably for occassions such as this. 

Taehyung takes a moment to survey the antechamber before his face splits into an almighty grin and he throws himself at Jungkook,

"Ahh I’ve missed you so much," he breathes into Jungkook’s ear,

Jungkook beams, “what are you missing me for? Aren’t the Beauxbatons boys enough for you?”

"Kookie!" Taehyung steps out of the hug and actually manages to look slightly scandalised, "I’m a teacher!"

"Doesn’t mean you can’t look,"

"I can assure you I have better self control than that,"

Taehyung turns around and starts rummaging through the piles of old robes and muggle clothing. Jungkook finds his attention rather too firmly fixed on his friend’s rear end and decides that he would make a horrible teacher - he has no self control at all. 

"I’m surprised you kept the fish tank," Taehyung says, pulling a pair of black skinnies from the depths of a celing high stack of denim,

"I didn’t keep it it sort of just…kept itself. Like it was waiting for you," Jungkook watches Taehyung’s fingers fumble with the broken zip at the front of his jeans, "I mean it had to be for you, you’re still the only aquatic animagus the school has ever produced,"

Taehyung makes a half interested noise but the zip is still giving him trouble. Jungkook rolls his eyes and steps over to help out, 

"Let me guess," he smirks, tapping Taehyung on the head with his wand to allow a drying spell to deal with his hair, "you left your wand back in France,"

"You got me," Taehyung lets himself be meanuevered into position to fix his zip, Jungkook’s hand on his hip and wand pointing in a potentially dangerous direction, "you sure you know what you’re doing?"

"Yes," Jungkook breathes. His fingers curl into the denim, his wand arm drops and before Taehyung can so much as blink in confusion the space between them vanishes.

It’s not a long kiss, it’s not even a particularly well thought out one. Jungkook hadn’t been planning to kiss Taehyung, but that’s not to say he hadn’t wanted to, that he hasn’t wanted to for the past two years.

Taehyung’s lips are dry but soft, and though he tenses in surprise when Jungkook first leans in he relaxes quickly. A hand comes up to rest at Jungkook’s neck, thumb teasing the sensitive skin just below his ear.

Jungkook pulls away, feeling more shy than his boldness would indicate, “sorry I just…”  
"It’s fine," Taehyung laughs softly, "really, it’s um…it’s great just…." he looks down at the broken zip, "you couldn’t have fixed this first?"

Jungkook shrugs, “you didn’t really think I’d try spellcasting that close to your dick did you? C’mon, take ‘em off and I’ll sort you out,”

"What?"

"You heard me," Jungkook flashes Taehyung a wicked grin, "take off your trousers and I’ll sort you out."


	32. Here And Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late nights working in the studio - you can only get so much done

Donghyuk’s frown deepens with every turn of the dial. It doesn’t sound right, it hasn’t sounded right all day despite him trying every trick he knows to even out the somewhat clunky sounding production. 

He sighs and his eyes dart to the clock - one in the morning. Not cripplingly late, but when they’ve been at it for so long hometime seems way overdue. He knows that if they leave now he’ll have lost all momentum when he tries to come back to it the next day but he’s also sick of the sight and sound of it. 

Reluctantly, Donghyuk pulls his headphones off. He hasn’t eaten since lunch and figures he deserves a break for food if nothing else. 

"Wanna go to McDonald’s?" he asks Namjoon, leaning back in his chair far enough to see her sprawled out on the studio couch. 

"I shouldn’t," she grumbles, eyes not leaving her phone.

Donghyuk goes over to her and plops himself down on the other end of the couch, “I’m not asking if you _should_ go to McDonald’s, I’m wasking if you _want_ to go to McDonald’s. With me,” he flutters his eyeslashes hard enough to make Namjoon laugh,

"A midnight date?"

"Exactly!"

"Sound’s great,"

"Let’s go then,"

"I can’t," Namjoon looks up from her phone in time to stop Donghyuk butting in, "if you order in I’ll have a big mac but I’m not going out for it,"

"Oh. Ok, you want fries?"

"Nah I’ll just steal some of yours,"

Donghyuk rolls his eyes and reaches for Namjoon’s phone. It says something that he doesn’t even need to look up the number before he dials; he orders on autopilot and throws the phone back to Namjoon when he’s done. 

They usually wind up eating junk food in Donghyuk’s home studio when Namjoon stays over. They used to go out for it but it’s getting increasingly hard to convince her that that’s something they can get away with. As Bangtan get ever more popular the risk of Namjoon being recognised is ever more serious and on days like today, when she’s feeling so comfortable in her skin, the repercussions of being spotted would be terrifying. 

"C’mere," Donghyuk holds out an arm and waits for Namjoon to fit herself under it, her head resting on his shoulder and one hand on his knee. Her hair smells nice, like it always does when it gets long enough that she has to worry about keeping it well rather than just keeping it clean and her nails are painted black, chipping at the edges with days of wear and tear. 

Donghyuk bends down to kiss her forehead and pulls her in close. It’s important to notice the little details, it’s important to not reduce Namjoon’s attempts to be feminine to skirts and hastily applied makeup. He knows that she’s a girl whether Big Hit like it or not but a lot of people don’t, or even if they do they’re not kind enough to talk about her like she is. The hair and the nails, hell even the pink phone case, they’ll all be ripped from Namjoon’s grasp and swept under the rug the next time she needs to appear in public. 

And the worst part is that they’re not even the things that make Namjoon a girl. They’re the details that she clings to in her desperate attempts to convince everyone else that she’s not faking, because for the time being no one’s going to let her do what she needs to to feel at home in herself. It wasn’t a week ago that she showed up on Donghyuk’s doorstep red eyed and cold hearted having been told for the third time that year that she wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone about her gender and that hormone therapies were officially off the table. 

It’s awful, Donghyuk hates watching her shrink into herself every time she is reminded that she is so far off so much as giving people a chance to see her for who she really is. 

Namjoon’s fingers curl into the inner seam of Donghyuk’s jeans. He starts, pulled out of a trance he wasn’t aware he was in, “you ok?”

"Mmmhmm," she sits up far enough to look him in the eye, smile innocent enough but her eyes shining coyly. Donghyuk takes a deep breath, whatever Namjoon is thinking about right now, it has nothing to do with the injustice of her gender. 

Slowly, Namjoon’s hand creeps up Donghyuk’s thigh, her smile unwavering. The further she goes the more concious Donghyuk becomes of the pressure placed on sensitive nerves leading to his crotch, and the twitch in Namjoon’s dimple keeping time with her breathing. 

Eventually she stops, her hand right at the top of his leg and dangerously close to his rapidly hardening dick, 

"What do you want?" she murmers, squeezing his thigh,

Donghyuk slides his hand into her hair, bleach fading and roots growing strong in her attempts to grow it out as much as possible before she’s forced to have it cut back, “well first I wanna kiss you. And then-“

The afterthought is lost on Donghyuk’s tongue as Namjoon leans in and shuts his mouth for him. She kisses him softly, their tongues barely touching and their lips pressing lightly against each other. It always starts like this, bold intentions and gentle actions - the calm before a storm. 

Namjoon reaches forward to undo Donghyuk’s jeans and loses her balance. His hands find her hips to steady her and he pulls her forward, groaning into her mouth as her hand slides into his underwear and her thumb teases the head of his dick,

"Move your…take these off, I can’t reach," Namjoon mumbles against Donghyuk’s lips. He does as she asks and she moves to straddle him, one hand coming to rest on his shoulder as the other takes a firm hold of his cock. She starts out easy, like with the kisses, making sure that he’s fully hard before increasing the pace. 

"Do you want me to…" Donghyuk’s voice comes out breathless and his words poorly defined but Namjoon knows what he’s talking about. It’s important to ask about these things; some days she loves it and other days being touched like that makes her body feel alien and male.

Today is a good day. Namjoon nods frantically, “yes. Please,”

Her skirt is loose, stopping just above the knee and mercifully she has decided to forgo tights today so Donghyuk has only to slip his fingers under her panties to find her hard and eager and leaning into his touch the second he gets his hands on her. 

Years of living in shared dormitries have made Namjoon quiet during sex, but her body is more expressive than Donghyuk’s gutteral moans ever manage to be. Her back forms a clean arch when his fingers graze her most sensitive spots, she quivers beneath his fingertips when he sucks at the pulsepoint on her neck and she kisses him like she might suck the air from his lungs. 

It’s magical, it’s all consuming, and in the end Donghyuk is so distracted by the way she moves when he touches her that he nearly misses his own climax. It creeps up on him from somwhere between the pleats of her skirt and the pressure of her fingers and the smell of her hair and her breath quickening in his ear. He holds her close as she strokes him through the aftershocks, hand erractic and stuttering as she approaches orgasm herself. 

She comes with a choked moan, eyes squeezed shut and forehead pressed against Donghyuk’s. Her body tenses for a long moment and then she goes limp in his arms, falling forward and nuzzling into his neck.

“Hey you,” Donghyuk breathes,

“M’sleepy,”

“I’m not surprised,” Donghyuk smiles, “that came out of nowhere,”

“Not really, I was horny,” Namjoon pulls back grinning dopily, “there was a point about an hour ago where I came _this_ close to offering to suck your dick while you worked,”

“I wouldn’t have gotten much work done,”

“That was kind of the point,”

“What stopped you?”

Namjoon giggles and pulls herself off Donnghyuk’s lap, “I wanted you to buy me dinner first,”

“Dinner?” for a moment Donghyuk can’t think what she means. Then it hits him and he’s dashing to the front door, Namjoon’s deep, full bodied laughter ringing in his ears as he goes.

He returns with a McDonald’s bag, mercifully still warm tucked under his arm. Namjoon is sitting at the mixing desk, headphones on and listening to the track Donghyuk’s been working on all day.

He shoves her bigmac under her nose to get her attention. She takes it, grinning ear to ear, “thanks!”

“What do you think?” Donghyuk asks through a mouthful of his own burger.

Namjoon nods emphatically, “it’s good, really good. I made a couple of tweaks just to even things out a bit but yeah it’s great,”

“Gimme the headphones I wanna listen,”

Namjoon passes Donghyuk the headphones and sits back to eat, eyes rolling back in her head as her teeth sink into bread and meat and cheese. Honestly, Donghyuk sometimes wonders if she doesn’t like food more than sex.

He reaches over her to hit the playback button and waits as the infuriatingly familiar intro plays itself out. Then the beat drops and suddenly everything falls into place, Donghyuk would be hard pressed to explain exactly how it’s different from how he left it, but listening to it now the niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right is gone.

“What did you do to it?”

Namjoon shrugs, “I dunno I just fiddled with the levels a bit. You can change it back if you want I haven’t saved this yet,”

“What would I wanna change it back for? This is perfect, thanks,”

“Don’t say I never do anything for you!” Namjoon reaches out to extract the bag from Donghyuk’s grasp, “now where are those fries…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not a transgirl, if I have messed up at all pleae just let me know


	33. Don't Touch My Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jiyeon doesn't appreciaite people messing with her things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is the tale of how Namjoon stole Jiyeeon's beat - first mentioned in http://archiveofourown.org/works/1167947Trouble In Paradise. Thankfully I don't think you need to read TIP to understand this but hey if you want to go ahead

It’s 3AM when Jiyeon finds enough time to return to the studio. The five of them have been working flat out in the run up to debut, trying to make sure that every last kink is ironed out of their act. From their clothes to their dancing to their sweet, bubbly personalities, they are fast approaching the perfection that will be demanded of them for the entirety of their careers in the entertainment industry.   
  
Jiyeon’s sick to death of it, she’s more than ready to stop trying to be something and start just being. Everyone says that the month before debut is the worst and once you’re actually out there all the lessons that were beaten into you come naturally - she hopes they’re right.   
Sighing, she collapses into the producer’s chair and turns on the computer. It’s a nice chair, squishy in all the right places with a high back to support your neck; she could almost…  
  
Jiyeon starts forward, “you can sleep when you’re dead,” she mutters, and goes to open up the audio file she was working on last week.   
  
She knows something’s wrong from the get go, there’s a vocal track sitting above her production work that she knows she never added and when she hits the playback button she can hear that someone has tampered with the bassline.   
  
Then the vocals start up. Stupid, clever, irritating, deep voiced rap that could only belong to one person. Jiyeon’s fingers tighten over the mouse, she’s not even annoyed that he used her beat, but she can’t believe he didn’t at least save his work as a seperate file.   
  
She could delete the vocal line and work with the altered instrumental. She could rerecord the bass if it bothers her that much, but Jiyeon hates going back over old ground and she’s pretty sure that she still remembers the key combination to open the boys' dorms.   
  
Smirking to herself, Jiyeon closes down the computer and heads towards the exit. Namjoon will just have to deal with her inconvinient timing.   
  
  
  
The door sticks and for a moment Jiyeon wonders if she has the combo wrong after all. She twists the handle a little further and grins as the seal slowly breaks and the door swings open.   
  
Hoseok should be more careful who he gives out their dorm code too, Jinhee can’t keep a secret to save her life.   
  
Jiyeon keeps quiet in as much as she manages not to outwardly curse at the outrageous stink of the assorted shoes that all but bar her way to the living room as she enters the flat. Once safely across the threshhold however her feet grow heavy and she stoms her way towards the bedroom.   
  
She pauses as she’s about to open the bedroom door; what if Namjoon sleeps naked?   
  
She shrugs - oh well.   
  
"Alright boys, wakey wakey!" Jiyeon flips the light switch and beams at the assorted profanities that are thrown her way,   
  
"What the…you’re not our manager," Hyosang blinks furiously at her from under a mop of badly permed hair.   
  
Jiyeon rolls her eyes, “well obviously, where’s Namjoon?”  
  
"Why’d you have to wake us all up?"  
  
"Namjoon!"  
  
"He’s over there," Hyosang grumbles, pointing vaguely at the other side of the room before pulling his duvet over his face and rolling away to face the wall.   
  
Jiyeon spies Namjoon, hunched over so as not to hit his head on the bunk above him. She marches over and grabs him by the wrist, “c’mon we have important stuff to talk about,”  
  
"Noona what time is it? Can’t this wait till morning?"  
  
"You can sleep when you’re dead, right now you have to have an important conversation with me!" She smiles brightly at him, he peers at her through eyes still half asleep. He looks awful, Jiyeon wonders if all boys look this pathetic when they’ve just woken up or if Big Hit has a knack for weeding them out.   
  
Helpless, Namjoon lets himself be dragged out of bed and into the living room. The door has barely closed behind them before Jiyeon hears someone get out of bed just long enough to turn off the lights and then they’re alone in the living room, light from the street spilling through the gaps in the blinds - enough to make Namjoon’s disgruntled expression obvious but not enough to actually wake him up.   
  
"So…" Jiyeon starts  
  
"So?"  
  
Jiyeon has no idea how to begin, so instead she reaches out and cuffs Namjoon on the back of the head,  
  
Namjoon starts forward, “what was that for,” he reaches up to rub the sore spot and Jiyeon pokes him in the armpit.  
  
And as luck would have it he’s ticklish. Namjoon leaps three feet in the air and almost trips over the couch in his rush to get away from her. Jiyeon lunges forward to have another go at him and he only just manages to escape, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.   
  
Jiyeon grabs the one sad, lonely cushion from the end of the couch and proceeds to hit Namjoon with it at whatever angle she can manage from her, quite frankly rather more comfortable vangatge point. Namjoon splutters and waves his hands around in a pathetic attempt to sheild himself, shrieking as if she were ripping his hair out.   
  
The living room light flickers on  
  
"What the hell are you doing?" Hoseok roars at them, crossing the room and ripping the cushion out of Jiyeon’s hands,   
  
Jiyeon blinks up at him, “Namjoon stole my beat,”  
  
"I don’t care if he stole your mum, it’s nearly 4AM and some of us," he glares at her, "have important things to do in the morning,"  
  
Hoseok pulls Namjoon up roughly by the elbows, shoves him towards the bedroom and follows after him, nose held firmly in the air. The door slams and Jiyeon can hear Yoongi’s muffled swearing as Namjoon proceeds to recount the evening’s events as if he were the survivor of some horrific beating.   
  
Jiyeon taps her fingers against the armrest of the couch, keeping time with a song that’s been stuck in her head all day. She finally realises that it’s the very same beat that Namjoon decided to ‘improve upon’.   
  
Typical.   
  
The smart thing to do would be to get up, put her shoes on and trudge back to the dorm where Miso will probably be up and awake and getting ready to greet the day with a smile on her face. Jiyeon groans and burries her face in her hands.   
  
Maybe she’ll just sleep on the couch.


	34. All On One Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungkook wouldn't be a temptation if Yoongi weren't so easily swayed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone's aged up in this fic. Jungkook is ~25 and Yoongi is ~30.

The second time it happens, Dahee’s out of town and Yoongi can’t pretend he’s disappointed. He looks out of the bedroom window and watches the headlights of Jungkook’s car cut out as the engine falls silent. 

At this time of night it’s too quiet for secrecy, and the slam of the car door makes Yoongi jump. Jungkook marches up to the house and rings the bell, one, twice, the shrill siren surely loud enough to wake the street. 

Yoongi doesn’t move. Yoongi shouldn’t move. Yoongi’s good at staying still. 

Jungkook steps back and peers up at him, just to make sure that Yoongi knows he knows. To make sure they’re on the same page. 

In another vesion of reality, Yoongi practices self control as hard as he practices self sabotage. Alone, in the dark, at three in the morning, in the corner of his heart where he thinks to hide his secrets, Yoongi feels his fingers slipping off the latch that seals the front door tight, before he has a chance to consider consequences. He lets Jungkook in and hopes that the sound of their breathing is enough to drown out everything else. 

If there’s anything else to hear. 

Dahee gets back two days later and kisses the corner of Yoongi’s mouth absent mindedly. If she notices anything out of place she doesn’t mention it, and Yoongi promises himself that twice is enough. 

 

The third time it happens it’s an accident, a trick of the light. They’re walking towards each other, on the same street in an area of the city Yoongi doesn’t have any reason to be in. Jungkook is right in front of him by the time he comes into focus, and once he’s there it’s hard to think about anything else. 

Yoongi tries to sidestep; he’s good at dodging the things he doesn’t want to deal with, he should have been a basketball player after all. 

He wants to deal with Jungkook though, just a little, just enough. Fingers close around his wrist and before he can rally to the cause of common sense Jungkook’s leaning in. 

“I know a place.”

Yoongi’s heard that before. He knows too many places, every last one of them another sin against someone who deserved more from him. 

Or who just deserved more. You can get this from anyone after all. When Yoongi links his fingers with Jungkook’s and tells himself this was inevitable he knows he’s just being selfish. He wants this, but he has a choice, and he can’t choose this if he wants to choose Dahee. 

Yoongi wants to choose Dahee, but when Jungkook shoves him through the door of an unfamiliar building and pins him to the wall, he knows he’s going to choose wrong. 

 

The fourth time it happens, Yoongi gives Jungkook a key to the back door. It’s inexcuseable, and after that he loses count. 

 

The fifth time he dares to put a number to it, there’s a pretty girl who he doesn’t recoognise hanging off Jungkook’s arm. She looks over when Jungkook does and smiles at Yoongi like she knows all too well who he is.

Dahee looks between them, her brow creasing as she tries to put two and two together. Yoongi can see that she’s going to come to the wrong conclusion, but he can’t correct her without pointing her towards the right one. 

Jungkook catches Yoongi’s gaze and smirks. Why do they have to do this in public?

Next to him, Dahee tenses, then drops his hand. Maybe she can see how this works after all. 

 

The first time it happens, Jungkook knows exactly what he’s doing. They’ve known each other for a while, and he knows about Yoongi’s wife; but he doesn’t know her personally. So when he slides himself a little too far into Yoongi’s personal space it doesn’t feel like he’s playing unfair. 

They’re at a bar, but neither of them has really touched their drink. This is the kind of place they should have avoided coming to alone (and under the circumstances, being here together counts as being here alone) unless they meant to play with fire. 

Jungkook’s seen the way Yoongi looks at him. A little too long, a little too longingly. 

“I have a idea,” Jungkook breathes into the shell of Yoongi’s ear. 

Yoongi’s hand slides off the table to brace himsef against Jungkook’s thigh. It’s hard to tell if it’s invitational or preventative, but the way Yoongi’s eyes rake over his face is unambiguous. 

“Just once,” Yoongi whispers as he steps into Jungkook’s bedroom. 

Jungkook nods, and doesn’t believe him in the slightest.


	35. Back To The Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winner debut, Minho reconnects with old friends and makes some new ones

Backstage at M Countdown is exactly as glamourous as Minho remembers. Which is to say, not very glamourous at all. Groups are shoved and squeezed into dressing rooms not built to accommodate somany people, and the combined sounds and smells of this many performers is nigh on strong enough to knock him off his feet. 

“Eurgh,” Taehyun wrinkles his nose as they pass JJCC, “does no one think to use deodorant back here?”

“Sure they do, but trust me the only thing worse than the smell of two dozen idol groups fresh offstage, is the smell of their combined deodorant. It’s better this way,” Seungyoon says. As their leader, and a debuted solo artist in his own right, the others defer to him on all matters of music show competence. 

As their ex leader, and ex-member of an unsuccessful former idol group, Minho is of the opinion that the only smell worse than that of two dozen idol groups fresh offstage, is the smell of Block B’s shoe closet. Surrounded by bodies sweating under the combined pressures of stage lighting and the mid August heat wave however, it seems like something of a moot point.

Their manager arrives with a sack full of signed CDs for them to hand out to their new colleagues. “Remember,” she warns, “YG or not this is your first week. Everyone here is a senior, so be on your best behaviour.”

She punctuates her last comment with a pointed stare at Taehyun, who shrugs like he has no idea what she’s talking about.

They each take a stack of albums and begin the process of handing them out. Jinwoo gets swept up by Orange Caramel almost immediately and Seunghoon slinks off to the other side of the room where Spica have just arrived back from prerecording.

Minho grabs a handful of albums and scans the crowds for a group that looks to be engaged with neither pre-stage preparations nor one of his group mates. He’s starting to think that he may have to brave Taemin when a face too familiar for television appears amongst a sea of celebrities. 

“Namjoon!” Minho barrels across the room, almost knocking Red Velvet over in the process and having to apologise profusely before he can move on. 

“Smooth Hugeboy, smooth,” Namjoon laughs when he finally escapes.

Minho grins sheepishly, “just trying to leave a lasting first impression.”

“I’d say you managed that…one way or another.”

“Hyeong!” a small boy with an excited face pops up at Namjoon’s shoulder, “you didn’t tell me you knew Mino sunbaenim!”

“Of course I do, Jimin! he’s Royal Class!” Namjoon throws an arm around Minho’s shoulder, “Daenamhyup and Royal Class are tight.”

The boy - Jimin - looks thoroughly impressed, and squeals with delight when Minho hands him an copy of the S/S album. “Jungkook! I got Winner sunbaenim’s album!!”

“We’re not your sunbaes!” Minho calls after him, but Jimin has already vanished into the mass of stylists crowding around Bangtan’s maknae.

“Jimin would call the pizza delivery guy ‘sunbaenim’ if he found out he had once handed Yang Hyunsuk a napkin, kid’s total YG trash.”

Minho looks around to find the source of the voice as Namjoon disentangles his arm from around Namjoon’s neck to answer the call of his manager.

“Over here.” 

His eye catches the movement of someone waving their hand in his general direction as they scroll through their phone. Their hair’s different, but Minho just about recognises them from the few Bangtan MVs he’d watched when they first debuted. 

He holds out a hand, grinning, “Suga, right?”

“Got it in one. Nice to meet you Hugeboy” Suga takes the offered hand but barely looks up from his phone. 

“Please, call me Minho.”

“What’s wrong with Hugeboy?”

“I…don’t use that name anymore,” Minho laughs despite himself. He still can’t believe he managed to pick such a ridiculous stage name. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I used to call myself ‘Gloss’.”

“Why on earth-”

“My name’s Yoongi, and in English-”

“Ooooh! Wow that’s pretty clever.”

Suga snorts, “Hardly.”

“Yoongi we need you in makeup,” a stylist pokes her head out from the swarm of people surrounding Jungkook. Suga nods and pulls himself into a standing position with all the enthusiasm of a fifteen year old getting up for school on a Monday morning.

Minho bows to him as he goes, “break a leg out there today! You should add me on kakao sometime, my ID’s-“

“Hugeboy?” Minho laughs at himself and nods in confirmation, “you don’t half make it easy for people to make fun of you.”

“Just trying to give you all something to smile about!”

Suga rolls his eyes, but Minho can see that he’s smiling. And by the time he gets back from soundcheck, he has a new kakao friend.


	36. Straight To Video

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donghyuk and Ikje make a sex tape

Donghyuk watches Ikje set up the camera with a sense of impending doom. They’ve talked about this a lot, it’s the logical thing to do under their current circumstances, but logic and comfort are two different things and he’s fast learning that the things he’s comortable talking about don’t translate very well into practice. 

Ikje fiddles with a final wire and a little red light blinks on; Donghyuk’s toes curl, “run me through this one more time.”

Ikje’s eyes narrow, “you’re not backing out, are you?”

“Just go through it again. Please.”

“I know a guy, who knows a guy, who says he can give us eight million won for a decent video of…ya know…”

Donghyuk sniffs. He does know, and it never seemed like much of an issue until the camera was pointing right at him. Sitting in Ikje’s bedroom in nothing but his boxers, he feels a little exposed. 

Still, eight million won, it’s hard to argue with a figure like that, and for only ten minutes’ work. Donghyuk doesn’t exactly need the money, but he can’t deny that having a bit more room to maneuver in his bank account would be wonderful. 

And he’s gotten so used to the idea that as of tomorrow he’s going to have cash to burn, that the concept of not having it seems like a devastating loss, no matter how preemptive.

Ikje plops down on the bed next to him. The lighting is just right to make his knees look preposterously knobbly in conjunction with the thin thighs poking out of his boxers. Donghyuk supposes he probably looks kind of strange too, not wiry like Ikje but his legs are kind of stubby and his hair is unorthodox to say the least. 

“I mean, if you really don’t want to…”

“It’s fine,” Donghyuk stops Ikje before he can be persuaded to back out, “it’s no big deal. I mean there no way anyone’s ever gonna find out so…”

“Right”

“So maybe we should just…”

“Yeah.”

They should get started, which would be a whole lot easier if Donghyuk had the faintest idea of where to start. On the internet, people in amateur pornography tend to begin three seconds away from the main action, but he’s not sure he can rush in like that. Especially in a situation so thoroughly bizzare. 

“I don’t really-”

Donghyuk can’t finish before Ikje shoves his tongue in his mouth. It’s kinda weird, because Ikje is a guy and, well…Ikje, and he has to stop himself recoiling in surprise. But it’s fine, it’s nice, it’s kissing. It’s just odd. 

Ikje seems to have a far better idea of how to handle things and so Donghhyuk lets him lead the way. He’s dragged to his knees and they orient themselves so that they’re facing the camera side on, a foreign pair of hands running themselves down his sides, getting closer and close to…

Donghyuk hisses when Ikje reaches down to grab his dick; he’s not hard yet but he can immediately feel himself falling more easily into his role when he has some friction to work with. The whole Ikje-ness of the situation is a lot less confusing when he’s having his dick touched. 

Besides, he’s supposed to be being sexy. There’s nothing sexy about watching two people touch each other silently. 

Touch _each other_. Right. This is a two way street, and if Ikje’s holding up his end of the bargain then Donghyuk has some work to do.

At first, he thinks that taking it slow would be better. ‘Slower equals sexier’ is a very well established formula in Donghyuk’s mind, but then Ikje’s pushing his boxers off his hips and doing something indescribable with his thumb and Donghyuk’s balls and suddenly slow doesn’t seem so necessary anymore. 

“Fuck,” Ikje hisses as Donghyuk fists his cock somewhat over enthusiastically, “easy there, we’re just getting started.”

Were they not trying to film this for profit, Donghyuk would take that as his cue to jerk Ikje even faster. As things stand he slides a hand into Ikje’s hair and revels in the groan he lets out when Donghyuk rubs his thumb over his slit. 

It’s not so bad at all, it’s fun even. 

Donghyuk is just starting to think that he could get used to being paid eight million won a video for this shit when the door to the bedroom slams open. Hunchul marches in, bold as you like, and is half way through explaining why traffic complications mean he can’t get home before he realises anything is amiss. 

Everyone freezes. Donghyuk and Ikje still have their hands in rather compromising positions, Hunchul squinting at them like he doesn’t quite know where to start.

And if Hunchul doesn’t know where to start, that means Ikje has to, “Listen, i know-”

“Were you guys trying to film yourselves?” Hunchul gestures to the camera in the corner. For someone who’s just walked in one two of his friends jacking each other off, one of whom has always maintained unerring heterosexuality, he seems remarkably unphased. 

Donghyuk pulls his hand out of Ikje’s pants and moves to pull up his own, blushing furiously the netire time, “th-this really isn’t what it looks like.”

 

Hunchul snorts, “don’t sweat it. I’m in no place to judge you guys for trying to make a few extra bucks or…whatever you’re gonna do with this. I was just thinking that the light’s kinda low in here, you need the room to be pretty bright for a camcorder.”

“Thans for the tip,” Ikje purses his lips and points to the still open door, “we’ll bear that in mind. Now please find someone else to annoy for the evening.”

“I could film it for you if you like, make things a bit more dynamic!”

“NOW Hunchul!”

After that Donghyuk’s blushing too hard to film for the next half hour, which gives them enough time to gather whatever lamps are hiding around Ikje’s flat and have a crack and better illuminating the room. 

Donghyuk has to admit, when they watch the footage back, everything post Hunchul is a lot easier to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry :/


	37. Lost In Translocation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimin gets a package that doesn't belong to him, Taehyung is an awful postman, and Hoseok has places to be

The first thought that crosses Jimin’s mind, is that this is an awful lot of horse magazines for one person. 

Actually no, that’s a lie, the first thing he thinks is that the photo that _Mating Mares Monthly_ chose for their advertisement is shot at an angle that leaves the viewer uncomfortably close to the model stallion’s rear end. He wonders at the volume of horse related literature not a second later though. 

“You’re sure you didn’t order them?” the postman asks for the fifteenth time. 

Jimin rolls his eyes and sighs to make sure his displeasure is translated down the phone line, “yes I’m very, very sure. I check my bank statements, I didn’t drunk order it or whatever.” 

He walks over and flips the box over to check for a return address, and sees a name that is most definitely not his own printed neatly on the label. 

“Taehyung…”

“Just bring the package down to the office and we’ll-”

“This package doesn’t have my name on it. It doesn’t even have my address.”

Silence falls across the phone. In his mind’s eye Jimin can already see Taehyung’s sheepish grin stretching out the corners of his mouth as he tries to keep himself from laughing. 

“Whoops.”

Jimin groans, and starts packing the spilled magazines back into their box. 

 

Taehyung is doing what appears to be jack shit, reclining in a swivel chair and flicking blue tack at the ceiling when Jimin slams the box onto the post office counter. And even then it takes some rather pointed throat clearing to get his attention. 

“Shit, you weren’t kidding about all the horses,” Taehyung laughs, rifling through the stash and selecting a publication entitled ‘Modern Horseman’ to flick through, “weird.”

“Like you’ve got a right to talk,” Jimin snaps, flicking the magazine out of Taehyung’s hands and back into the box, “and this is the third package of someone else’s that you’ve given to me in the past two months. You’re lucky we’re friends or I would be speaking to your supervisor right about now.”

“To tell her what a great job I’ve been doing?”

“To get you _fired_!”

“Good thing we’re friends then,” Taehyung wiggles his eyebrows as winningly as he can manage from underneath his frumpy uniform. 

Jimin scowls, “it’s not funny.”

Taehyung seems to have unilaterally decided that they’re moving on from the part of the conversation where he gets reprimanded for being shit at his job and onto the part where he attempts to make things right. “Were you expecting any packages today?” he asks from between the pages of a rather hefty looking file. 

“What?”

“Were you expecting any packages? Only we might have mixed you up with someone. I don’t think even I’m dumb enough to give you a package you didn’t order out of nowhere.”

Of course he’d been expecting a package. He’s been expecting a package for the past week. But no sooner has Jimin opened his mouth to say as much than his brain reminds him of exactly which package he’s been waiting for. 

Carefully, Jimin shuts his mouth before he can say anything. Taehyung stares into the file like he’s forgotten he’s supposed to be dealing with a customer. 

“I got a weird package this morning that doesn’t belong to me!” A second box crashes onto the counter at Jimin’s elbow, and the face of a man who looks like he’s doing everything in his power to keep himself smiling appears above it. 

Taehyung pulls his head out of his file and blinks at the man in surprise, “no way! Same thing happened to Jimin here.”

Neither of them says a word, though Jimin can feel the man with the other box staring at Taehyung with the same incredulity he is currently gracing him with. 

Jimin turns to the other man, “what was your name?”

“Jung Hoseok.” he nods in the direction of Jimin’s box, “so if you’re Jimin, I’m guessing that belongs to me.”

Hoseok flips the lid of his box up to demonstrate that the name ‘Park Jimin’ is scrawled along the top. Jimin double checks his own box and sure enough, Hoseok is the rightful recipient. 

“Well that was relatively painless,” Jimin mumbles as Hoseok hightails it out of the post office, horse magazines stashed safely under one arm. “I’ll just be-TAEHYUNG NO!”

Without so much as a ‘by your leave’, Taehyung wrenches the box open and peers down at the contents. 

“Jimin…”

“It’s not what it looks like!”

“As your postman I’m shocked!”

“I promise- wait, what?”

“The postman is supposed to be the secret lover,” Taehyung says somberly, “it’s age old tradition, I can’t believe you’d double cross me like this.”

“He’s not my ‘secret lover’ Taehyung jeez,” Jimin says, tugging the box towards him and snapping the lid shut. 

“Oh so he’s your boyfriend?”

“No…”

Taehyung blinks, “I don’t get it.”

“He’s…he’s a singer ok,” Jimin hisses as quietly as he can manage, leaning over the counter till there’s no danger of anyone overhearing him.

“A singer?” Taehyung says, way too loudly, because privacy is overrated apparently, “aren’t you a little old to be fawning after idols?”

Jimin sniffs, “he’s not an idol, Jeon Jungkook is a true artist.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it”

“Yeah well for the meantime you best believe that if you tell _anyone_ about this, your supervisor is going to receive a very _interesting_ letter regarding all your misplaced packages.” Jimin heaves the box off the counter, and marches both it and himself out of the post office with his nose in the air. 

He gets a text two seconds later: _I don’t get it. Why would she just randomly get a letter like that? - Tae_

If cameras were located on street corners, Jimin would find one for the sake of staring into it. For the time being, he’s content to smuggle his precious cargo home, where he fully intends to paper his room with Jeon Jungkook’s selfies.


	38. Everyone's Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoseok hates practicing in the middle of the day, Donghyuk doesn't seem phased (dance crew AU)

The sun on the back of Hoseok’s neck burns almost as hot as the tarmac through the soles of his plimsolls. His shirt sticks to his skin uncomfortably; he’s sure there must be rivulets of sweat running down his back by now, and when he lifts up his arms for the start of the bridge he gets a nose-full of his own body odor. 

Even the pigeons have retreated to the shade of the jungle gym. There’s a reason they don’t rehearse in the middle of the day. 

“Ok let’s take it from the top!” Sohee barks from her privileged position by the boombox. As always, she’s decided that being group choreographer gives her full rights to sit on the sidelines for as many run-throughs as she likes, even if they’re not actually practicing any of her routines. 

Hoseok groans, fumbles for his water bottle, and is back in position by the time the opening notes of Lucifer start up. 

Idol routines; they’re all the rage right now. Come nightfall it will be a struggle to find the space to swing a cat on the main drag for dancers trying their hand at making some easy cash, and only the best will make enough bank to not have to worry about coming back tomorrow. 

Hoseok zones out somewhere after the second chorus and crashes into Byulyi. Sohee screams in frustration and stops the music. Byulyi ricochets off Hoseok and winds up a tangle of limbs on the ground along with Jimin 

“I could just…not get up,” Byulyi says wistfully.

“Get off me! I can’t feel my legs,” Jimin wails. And after that everyone has to step in.   
Hoseok offers Byulyi a hand and hopes she doesn’t notice that he wreaks of sweat and stale deodorant while Donghyuk dusts Jimin off. The two invalids are covered in dust, which turns to filth on their damp skin, leaving them looking decidedly bedraggled. 

Or at least in need of a nice long shower. Sohee looks between Byulyi and Jimin, jaw slackening by the second, “oh my god you look awful.”

Apparently that’s enough to stop practice, sunburn and potential dehydration are occupational hazards but Sohee can’t have her team mates out in public ‘looking like they slept in the fucking Playground!’. She ushers them off in the general direction of a bus stop before hopping on her bike and informing Hoseok and Donghyuk in a rather shrill voice that she still expects to see them outside H&M at 5PM that evening. 

“You forgot the boombox!” Hoseok calls after her, but Sohee either can’t hear or chooses not to. 

And now they have an expensive bit of kit to take care of, great. Hoseok would sorely like to leave it where it is, just to piss Sohee off, but of course they wouldn’t be out here in the middle of the day practicing someone else’s routines if their group didn’t really need the money, and losing the boombox would hardly improve their financial situation. 

“Hey, got you this.” Donghyuk pops up at Hoseok’s shoulder and presses a bottle of water, cold out of the convenience store fridge into his hand.

Hoseok could cry, “has anyone ever told you that you’re an angel?” he asks after downing half the bottle in one go. 

Donghyuk grins wide, so that his eyes curve into crescent moons. He sips at his water with more elegance than anyone drenched head to toe in sweat has any right to, smile not slipping as he looks up at the swarm of dragonflies hanging over their heads. 

The silence stretches out between them. And it stretches…and stretches. It’s not that he and Donghyuk don’t have anything in common, they wouldn’t have wound up dancing together if that were the case. But at the youngest in the group Donghyuk’s mum always wants him home by midnight so he misses out on most of the post street performance drinking that the rest of them engage in, and Hoseok can’t help but feel that he doesn’t know the kid all that well.

“So…um…”

“I was gonna work on some of my own stuff, if that’s all right with you,” Donghyuk beams, pulling his phone from his pocket and bending down to connect it to the boom box, “not that Shinee aren’t great but it’s not really why I joined.”

Hoseok shrugs, “sure. If you wanna dance out in the sun like that in your own time be my guest.”

“Oh it’s not so bad.”

Donghyuk rolls his head and pops his hips, does some rather tricky looking staccato movements with his arms and pirouettes. It doesn’t look much like a proper routine.

Hoseok is about to gently suggest that perhaps it would be more worth while him sticking to Sohee’s choreography, when the track changes and all of a sudden it doesn’t look so random.   
The music is slower, the bass low and the vocals high. It’s an American RnB song but Hoseok isn’t familiar with it and has no idea what it’s about. 

He can see exactly what Donghyuk is dancing about though. The way he pulls his limbs taught only to let them melt into muscle memory a second later, the way he flows over and around the music, the way he gyrates over the crooning of the singer. It’s definitely supposed to be sexy. 

And Donghyuk is a good looking kid, wearing as little clothing as can be excused, out dancing in broad daylight. He starts gathering attention almost immediately. 

The track finishes and Donghyuk jumps a little when he’s met with applause. He laughs at his own foolishness and bows to his unexpected crowd, before dropping back too a safe distance where Hoseok is minding the bags. 

“That was…great,” Hoseok says, handing him his water.

“You don’t sound convinced”

“No I mean it it’s just…” Hoseok doesn’t know how to go about handling the matter gracefully so plunges right on in, “aren’t you a little young to be dancing like that?”

Donghyuk looks surprised, “I’m eighteen, hyeong.”

“Exactly!”

Giggling under his breath, Donghyuk unscrews the cap of his water bottle and empties the rest of its contents over Hoseok’s head, “cool your jets, old man.”

Hoseok splutters and tries to sound suitably outraged, but by the time he’s regained his composure Donghyuk is already back out by the boombox, a collection of thousand won bills sitting triumphant in his freshly laid out hat.


	39. Carve Me Out Of Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donghyuk builds a bed for Namjoon, but mostly for the both of them (carpentry AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [kuopyo](http://kuopyo.tumblr.com/) for the AU idea

Donghyuk traces the knot in the wood with his thumb, following the contortions of the grain till the bark smooths back into lines he can follow. He’s going to have his work cut out with this one - the imperfection runs deep into the trunk by the looks of things, he can already feel it peeling away from him at the wrong angle. 

This is old oak though, it’s to be expected. Namjoon likes to run his hands over the clean cut beech table at the back of Donghyuk’s workshop and mutter rather wistfully that oak is a dream to work with. He’s wrong, but then again Namjoon was never very good at considering other people’s weaknesses where they overlap with his strengths. 

Namjoon likes to work in detail, to pick away at the wood till be finds a form beneath. He traces out twisting vines on poplar, finds dragons in the dips of cedar branches, spies the greenman hiding in the oak. 

In that respect oak is easy, it makes it’s own plans and all you have to do is keep up. A lot of Namjoon’s best work is done in oak, and it colours his eyes rosey when he watches Donghyuk laying out the twisted trunks as he starts to build from scratch. 

Strip the bark, lay the wood, he’s determined to do this all by hand. 

“Steady,” he mutters to himself when he sets the saw to the bottom of the first tree. He says it again when he hits the knot in an effort to dissuade himself from taking the easy route out and following the oak’s plan. Namjoon stands back with furrowed brows to wait for the moment everything falls apart. 

Nothing falls apart. 

“Look at that!” Donghyuk grins as the first panel comes free.

Namjoon’s eyes go wide, his hands come up to brush against the whorls left by the knotting of the tree, “wonderful.”

That’s all Donghyuk needs to hear. He cuts legs and struts, raises posts, leaves space at the headboard for something of Namjoon’s devising. When he gets to the third tree he finds the grain coloured brilliant brown next to the blonde, and works it into the foot. 

And all by hand, and slowly slowly, Donghyuk build a bed. He builds it out of oak because Namjoon loves oak, but he build it big enough for two because Namjoon loves him. He builds it himself because he loves Namjoon.

It stands in the centre of his workshop, resplendent in the late afternoon sun, the product of a week’s work. Donghyuk smiles to himself and sets down his hammer - only the varnish to go now. 

Namjoon shows up half an hour later with a cat tucked under his arm, all long limbs and lines first traced by an ash tree. He blinks out over the expanse of jumbled wood till his eyes settle on the bed - his smile comes slow but is all the brighter for it when it reaches it’s zenith. 

“It’s beautiful,” he breathes. Donghyuk smiles to himself and resists the urge to say he knows. 

Instead he passes over a rag drenched in varnish, sticky and sharp scented, the smell of a job well done. 

“C’mon then, the rest of this we have to share.”


	40. Pick Me Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi's jealous and wallowing in self pity, Donghyuk provides some much needed perspective

When Donghyuk left, he never handed in his key. The result of this is that he doesn’t leave their dorm, not entirely at least, and the seven of them get used to finding him dozing on the couch when they get back from rehearsals. 

No one minds, because Donghyuk’s easy to get along with and he’s far tidier as a house guest than a host; but as the company line drifts further and further into idol territory, Yoongi can’t help but view him as something of a ghost of the career they never got to have. 

Then they move, and Donghyuk doesn’t have the key any more. Yoongi assumes that will be the last word on the matter, but two weeks later he comes home late and finds him and Namjoon giggling over a bottle of soju in the living room. 

“What’s he doing here?” Yoongi snaps, harsher than he intended.

Namjoon’s face immediately resolves into a frown, “I invited him over. You got a problem with that?”

Yoongi doesn’t reply, but he makes sure that both of them see how his mouth flattens into a disapproving line as he crosses the flat to his bedroom. He feels the sting of something a little bit like guilt follow after him, putting in his headphones to drown it out. he has nothing to feel guilty about, and Donghyuk has no right to be here. 

 

“You free this evening?” 

“Nope,” Namjoon’s voice is terse, he doesn’t look up from his coffee. Yoongi holds his breath waiting for an explanation but none is forthcoming. 

Groaning internally, Yoongi takes a seat at the other side of the kitchen table, “why not?”

“Filming.”

Namjoon always seems to be filming something or other these days. He doesn’t brag about his new found popularity, which Yoongi is grateful for, but they all notice how he’s taken to rolling his eyes at the prospect of further concert rehearsals in a manner that the rest of them can’t sympathise with. 

Namjoon is tired. Hell, Yoongi’s tired, but they both know who’s got the rougher sleeping schedule. 

Setting his coffee down, Namjoon meets Yoongi’s gaze, “what’s you’re problem with Donghyuk?”

“I don’t have a problem with Donghyuk.”

“Yoongi…”

“I don’t!” Yoongi looks down at his hands, “I was just tired last night. I wasn’t expecting him here, it’s no big deal.”

Namjoon clicks his tongue and shakes his head, “you’ve always been weird with him. I know you’re not the most sociable guy in the world but you’re never happy to see him, which is kinda awkward when we have to work with him so much. I just…” he looks round the room like he’s searching for his next line written somewhere on the wall, “I need to know if he did something wrong or if you’re just bitter.”

“Why would I be bitter?” Yoongi frowns. 

Namjoon sits back, takes a long swig of coffee, and treats the kitchen to a sarcastic bark of laughter, “oh please.”

 

Donghyuk’s in the main studio that night when Yoongi goes in to get his laptop. There’s a curly straw poking out of the can of Red Bull he has sitting on the mixing desk and his hair has been rather haphazardly shoved under a beanie, blonde flyaways sticking out at odd angles. 

He sits up rather straight when Yoongi comes in and yawns loudly, “whatcha doing here?”

“Laptop,” Yoongi says, reaching down to pick what he needs up off the sofa. He tries a smile in Donghyuk’s direction but the diminutive producer seems too out of it to respond. 

He’s just about to leave when he gets called back, “can you take a listen to this for me?” Donghyuk shakes a pair of headphones in Yoongi’s direction. 

It would be rude not to, Yoongi supposes, he slips them over his ears and reaches forward to hit the playback button. It’s a good beat, energetic and bass heavy without falling too far into the ‘derivative trap’ category. He nods along appreciatively and hands the heaphones back with the same awkward half smile from before, “it’s good, as expected.”

Donghyuk makes a face, “you think? I reckon it needs some type of melody over it after the first chorus break. It’s tricky though, don’t want it to detract from whatever’s going on on top of the beat, ya know?”

Yoongi doesn’t know, so he shrugs, “you’d know better than me.”

“Yeah but it’s not like you know nothing.”

“I don’t know much,” Yoongi can feel his patience slipping. He has his mixtape to work on, and he’d like to get a head start on lyrics for the next Bangtan album before Bang PD starts riding them too hard about it. Meanwhile Donghyuk sits ensconced in the Big Hit studio, content to work at his own pace. 

Donghyuk frowns, “the hell does that mean? You know plenty, you’re stuff’s good.”

“Maybe. It doesn’t really matter though.”

“How d’you work that one out?”

“It’s like…” Yoongi finds himself looking round the room like Namjoon over breakfast, the words don’t spring into life in front of him, “people aren’t really listening to the music, ya know? They think we’re cute, everything else is a bonus." 

For a moment, Donghyuk doesn’t react, then a shadow crosses his face and he audibly growls under his breath, “are all idols this fucking stupid? Jeez”

“Well no one asked for your opinion,” Yoongi snarls before he can think better of it. 

Donghyuk gets to his feet and steps forward, for a moment Yoongi thinks he’s going to punch him, but he just raises an accusatory finger, “I’ve had it up to here with Namjoon whining about that ‘style over substance’ bullshit, I’m not going to listen to you spouting the same nonsense. People don’t buy your albums to listen to your cute face! And even if they do, who cares? They’re still buying them, aren’t they? They’re still encouraging you to keep making music.”

Yoongi opens his mouth to interject but Donghyuk barrels on, “give yourself some damn credit for your success, blaming everything you’ve accomplished on the fact that you’re pretty is a sure fire way to get complacent,” he nods towards the laptop, still tucked under Yoongi’s arm, “so you better be giving that mixtape your best shot. Namjoon sure as shit didn’t slack off making his.”

“Who said I wasn’t working hard?” Yoongi tries not to sound wounded, but given the way Donghyuk’s frown flickers with concern he’s not sure he’s managed it.

“No one, but you’ve been taking you’re sweet time with it and I’m pretty sure that if you were actually happy with what you’ve got so far it wouldn’t be taking so long.”

Humming in agreement, Yoongi pulls up a second chair as Donghyuk crumples back into his seat by the main monitor. The track he’s been working on stares back at them, accusing, but he genuinely doesn’t know how to make it work. If Donghyuk’s not happy with it then that’s it’s problem, but it sounds fine to him. 

“Will you listen to some of it? Just to let me know what you think?” The words are out of Yoongi’s mouth before he realises that he had decided to ask. 

Donghyuk looks round, “to your mixtape you mean? Sure.”

“Be honest with me, tell me if it’s crap.”

“Of course I will,” Donghyuk passes Yoongi the cable to hook his laptop up to the studio speakers, “it probably won’t be though.”

Yoongi manages a more genuine smile this time, “I’m only gonna play you the good stuff.”


	41. False Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinwoo is out of place and brilliant, Mino tries to work out what his deal is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the same universe as [Beat The Living Daylight](http://rixythewraith.livejournal.com/25095.html)

Minho takes care to play fair at first, sticking to the rules that guide the inductee fights. The trick, at this stage, is to lower their confidence, to keep them on their feet but never let them land a blow. There’s a measure of art to it that can’t be taught, and Minho is so very gifted at this stage of the proceedings that they only ever send him the toughest cases. 

This guy doesn’t look like a tough case. He’s short and slight, with the kind of good skin one can only maintain when you don’t make street fighting a habit and you can afford to stay out of the acid rain. His brows are set in a worried lines above wide, shining eyes - he’s very pretty, there would be easier ways for someone like him to make some quick cash. 

“Kim Jinwoo, right?” Minho smirks, stepping back from a flying fist not a moment too soon, “reckon I saw your name on a subway ad last week.”

“Let me guess, it said I had a tight little ass that could be opened up for the highest bidder,” Jinwoo doesn’t skip a beat, he ducks a blow from Minho and resolves the motion into a kick that would hurt if it actually hit home, “I’ve seen the ad, it’s for a different Kim Jinwoo.”

He’s faster than most of the new recruits, and he doesn’t flinch when Minho encroaches on his personal space, trying to hit him. His eyes still look worried, but his mouth is set in grim determination. He keeps his legs far enough apart to steady himself should Minho get a good hit in, and he doesn’t waste his breath grunting around the strikes he makes. 

Minho is impressed. It can’t last. He brings the edge of his hand down hard, aiming for Jinwoo’s neck but anticipating his speed and sure enough, when the moment comes there’s nothing there for him to hit. 

Jinwoo dodges the blow, but to do so is to lose his balance. He doesn’t so much crash to the ground as float, impossibly light and dainty. Minho’s sure that he’s won and steps forward with a triumphant grin to gloat over his opponent. 

But Jinwoo’s still fast, and though his small stature will never intimidate it does get ignored, and a good fighter with half a brain can use that to their advantage. He strikes out hard with his legs, swiping one across the floor and using the other to kick at the back of Minho’s calves, sending him tumbling forward. 

Minho does crash, roaring in pain as his face makes contact with the tarmac. Around them, other operators and trainees stop to watch events unfold, the blood oozing across the ground as Jinwoo leaps to his feet. 

“Shit, are you bleeding?” he hisses. Minho’s head whips round so Jinwoo can see the mess he’s made of his nose. 

“Pass me the cloth,” Minho mutters. Jinwoo complies and helps him to his feet. He’s not smiling, but it’s easy to see he’s pleased with himself. It normally takes a good two weeks of training for a trainee to have a decent chance of felling their operator. 

They retreat to the edges of the training floor while Minho tries to staunch the blood from his nose. He winces against the pressure of the cloth, but bites his tongue before he swears. His eyes stay fixed on Jinwoo, who’s watching the other trainees with avid curiosity, no doubt trying to gauge who in this room is likely to prove a threat to him. 

“You’re better than all of them,” Minho will tell him at the end of the month, “I could have moved you up on the first day and that would still have been true.” 

Jinwoo will ask why Minho kept him on if he was good from the get go, and Minho will almost not answer him. He will choose his words carefully when he explains that skill has to be tempered with caution, because there are people in the ring who have worked out that the former is no match for brute force. 

“I hope you eat well tonight,” Minho tells him, the morning of Jinwoo’s first Run. 

Jinwoo smiles at his hands, his perfectly trim nails resting on lean thighs. Minho still doesn’t think he needs to be here, but when he finishes up tenth he’s glad to have him under his thumb.


	42. Taste And Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seunghoon doesn't mean to turn Jinwoo, not at first (vampire AU)

Seunghoon’s blood is weak, as they discover the first time Minho tries to feed from him. It’s odd to find a vampire so old with such unrefined flavours, and it means the others return to feeding off Seungyoon for the most part. 

“Kyung used to taste delicious,” Minho sighs wistfully. There’s blood on his chin, left over from the fresh bite in Seongyoon’s arm. Seunghoon doesn’t say anything, just ducks his head and picks up where Minho left off - no use in wasting food. 

The failings of his blood are more than made up for by the quality of his bite, as it transpires. Minho loses his temper one cold winter afternoon and bites a boy he finds walking down by the river, and the vampire they get left with is terrifying. Seungyoon has to handle his bloodlust and animalistic rages personally, and it takes six months of beatings and dominance displays to so much as learn the boy’s name. 

“I’m Taehyun” he spits, “what the fuck did you do to me?”

It takes a long time to explain, and a longer time to persuade him not to go running into the city at the first opportunity to commit a massacre. After that Seungyoon makes it very clear that they will not bite any more humans, not to create new vampires at least. 

But the next spring Seunghoon meets a man down by the ocean with a smile as clean as sun cutting across the beach. They keep their distance but each others’ company ties them in silent solidarity. Watching without suspicion, waiting for the right moment to ask questions. 

The man grows ill, Seunghoon smells it on him months before he starts to decline. Seungyoon tells him there’s nothing he can do and offers him a long drink from his jugular, “enough to send you to sleep for a few weeks, work some shit out.”

Seunghoon says no of course, he marches back to the man on the beach and for the first time, reaches out to touch him. 

He smells so good, it’s been a very long time since Seunghoon had anything to do with humans, but he knows from the moment the scent hits the back of his mouth that this will be hard. 

“I’m Seunghoon,” he says with gritted teeth.

“Jinwoo,” the man laughs good-naturedly, and then he coughs long and loud. Like so many romantic leads in films who won’t survive to the ending credits. 

Except Jinwoo can survive, potentially forever. Seunghoon explains this to him in a rush, trying not to breathe in more than he has to, lest the smell have him get ahead of himself. He doesn’t want to bite too hard, there’s no surviving that. 

Jinwoo doesn’t flinch, or run, or scream. He blinks up at Seunghoon in wonder, autumn winds blowing his hair across his eyes. 

“Ok.”

It’s never that easy, it’s not supposed to be that easy. But Jinwoo says yes the first time and Seunghoon bites. His blood is like ambrosia, an all encompassing sense of contentment radiating through Seunghoon from his mouth, slipping through his gut and whispering for him to keep going, keep sucking, bleed him dry. 

He pulls himself off, just, and then he carries Jinwoo back to the others with a set jaw and the courage to say ‘no’ to Seungyoon if he demands they throw him out. 

Taehyun’s eyes go dark with hunger, he’s still so young and out of control, Minho drags him screeching and snarling back into the trees. Jinwoo still smells human though, Seunghoon can see even Seungyoon’s shoulders shake with the effort of not stepping forward to taste the blood.

“He’s your responsibility,” Seungyoon spits. Seunghoon agrees of course, though he knows none of them would ever let a wild vampire run off alone. 

Jinwoo isn’t calm when he wakes, they all know the blank, hungry expression that washes over his face during those first few weeks all to well - he looks like Taehyun when he’s caught the scent of violence. They can all be thankful that he’s small enough to be manageable. 

Seungyoon feeds him, Minho indulges him, Taehyun bites at his heels with the jealousy of a child that has just gained a new sibling. Seunghoon fights him down when necessary and talks him down where possible, and Jinwoo mellows fast.

By the time the next spring comes, Jinwoo has himself under control, and Taehyun still has all the manners of a dog that’s apt to forget its master will beat it if it growls. Jinwoo stays out of human settlements (for their good, not his) and listens when Seungyoon is talking, he asks to be fed when he needs it and offers to help feed the rest of them. 

His blood is very weak, but he has time to grow into it. Seungyoon is pleased by his progress and decides that if they ever need to turn another vampire, Seunghoon will be the one to do it. 

“I’m so hungry, can I have a drink?” Jinwoo asks Seunghoon one spring morning, down by the ocean. 

Seunghoon blushes and tells him his blood is no good. Jinwoo rolls his eyes and reaches for his wrist anyway. His teeth go in slow and delicately, table manners after a fashion. He never drinks long, his stomach hasn’t adapted for it yet, and so he must drink more often, but he usually waits for Seungyoon. 

He looks up from Seunghoon’s wrist, grinning, blood caught between his teeth, “you taste wonderful,” then dips his head and drinks again.


	43. The Unwanted Alarm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Go home Ikje, you're drunk

Namjoon is woken by his phone clamoring for attention at four in the morning. As soon as he sees the time he leaps into action, almost crashing into the bedside table in his haste to grab his glasses. 

Texts at four in the morning are rarely a good sign and are typically indicative of last minute choreography overhauls that require sixteen hours solid rehearsals to pin down. Namjoon sees that he has twelve unread texts and breathes deep to try to squash the dread building in his gut. 

Two texts can be discarded immediately as they are nothing more serious than adverts from the pizza place down the road. The other ten are less innocuous and significantly more bizarre. They’re all from Ikje, and when he opens up the message thread, it’s apparent that his hyeong is exclusively speaking English tonight. 

“What’s up?” Jimin hisses through the dark.

“Ikje’s being a prick, go back to sleep.”

Somewhere on the other side of the room, Jimin yawns loudly, “tell him hi from me.”

Shuffling out into the living room where he can be a nuisance in peace, Namjoon drags himself far enough out of sleep to start processing Ikje’s messages. 

_hiyaaaaaa cutie_

_u should come drink with us_

_hduhdsipfewhhwf :)_

_HUNCHUL JUST SHOWED UP he says he misses u_

_we r having funnnnn where r u?_

_were goin 2 Busan next weekend come with us_

_i hope hyosangs ok :(_

_oh wait shit u and hyosang are like…woah_

_ur hair is truly majestic btw do u like my hair_

_where areeeeee yoouuu_

It’s a lot to take in, Namjoon has to look up the word ‘majestic’ and when he’s done decides that it’s not the word he would use to describe anyone’s hair. He squints at the romanised versions of people’s names and thinks that whoever decided Hunchul needed a ‘u’ anywhere in his name needs their ears checked. 

He replies in Korean, because English conversation sounds like hell right about now: _hyeong, I think you’re drunk_

Not ten seconds later: _of course i am!!!!_

_speak english joonie i miss it_

Scowling at his phone, Namjoon taps out the most thorough English reply he can think of at that moment: _it’s early Ikje, i have to work today, please let me sleep. Also jimin says hi_

 _:( ok but imma call u tomorrow night!!! English chat!!_ is all the reply he gets. 

Namjoon can psyche himself up for that, it’s not the first time Ikje has proposed an ‘English chat’ while drunk and invariably they wind up speaking Korean at least half the time when they actually do speak. 

Ikje will call though, which is nice. And Donghyuk will come and take up space in the studio and on the couch, and if Hunchul’s around maybe Namjoon can go get a drink with him sometime.

He sighs, it’s quarter past four, and like it or not he has to be up at seven. He traipses back into the bedroom as quietly as he can manage, and enjoys the rest of his night’s sleep uninterrupted by any texts.


	44. Ah, Tis The East And Converse Hightops Are The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanbin can't sleep and Jiwon's not helping

Hanbin’s trying to catch up on some much needed sleep. He’s trying _so fucking hard_ but the combined distractions of Jinhwan video chatting with Jimin on the other side of the room, and his singular inability to stop dwelling on the enormous pile of shit he has to work through when he wakes up is making this somewhat difficult. He would be able to get around it, perhaps, if he wasn’t trying to squeeze his first decent night’s sleep in two weeks into the middle of a Wednesday. 

Jinhwan laughs obnoxiously loudly, Hanbin groans and seriously considers telling him to put a sock in it. The only reason he doesn’t is that AOA are popular and prolific and he wants them all to like him.

“Yo Hanbin, you busy?” 

He doesn’t have to look up to know that Jiwon is standing over his bed, wearing his best ‘I know you fucking are but what I have to say is more important right now so suck it’ grin. And of course, unlike everyone else in this wretched group, Jiwon and Jinhwan aren’t scared of him, and don’t fuck off when told. 

All the same…”fuck off!” Hanbin growls from under his duvet. Jiwon laughs him off, easy as anything. 

“C’mon now! I made a friend for you.”

“I don’t need friends,” he snarls, but he still sticks his head out to see what the hell Jiwon’s on about. 

Smile stitched up far too high for this time in the morning (”It’s three in the afternoon” Jinhwan snorts), Jiwon waves a piece of paper three inches in front of Hanbin’s nose. He takes it, blinking back the sleep that never quite managed to drag him under. 

It’s a random series of letters and numbers. “What the fuck?”

“It’s a kakao ID,” Jiwon says, evidently rather pleased with himself, “you should add them. I reckon you two would have a lot to talk about.” 

Figuring that it’s probably less hassle to indulge Jiwon and be done with it, Hanbin snatches the paper out of his hand and doggedly punches the ID into his phone. 

“You kids have fun,” Jiwon beams, and then he dashes straight back out of their shared bedroom, Two seconds later and a loud thump echoes through the dorm, followed by a string of rather creative curses that sound like Junhoe being tackled to the floor for no discernible reason. 

“We’ll call that an even five thousand won for the swear jar!” Jinhwan calls out to him, not even looking up from his phone. 

Hanbin turns towards the wall with an audible ‘humph’ and waits for Jiwon’s mysterious stranger to accept his request. Phone held in front of his face and just waiting…waiting…the effort of staying focused on anything wears on him fast, and before he knows what’s what he’s dozing off. 

_KAKAO_

He jerks awake rather too fast and almost drops his phone down the side of the bed. 

A half familiar face pops up in his chat list next to the name Kim Namjoon. It takes him a moment to put two and two together but Hanbin eventually recalls the tall, somewhat awkward boy that Jiwon had managed to engage in a half hearted diss battle at the end of last year.

 _Hey_ Namjoon says.

Hanbin has no idea why Jiwon would think that he would want to talk to Kim Namjoon of all people, so he keeps on waiting, just curious enough to see where this is going.

After a few minutes awkward radio silence, Namjoon continues. 

_So I’m just gonna cut to the chase, Bobby says you like shoes_

Hanbin feels his stomach drop. He has a rather nasty idea of what Jiwon's put him up to. 

The next thing Namjoon sends is a photo of a pair of red converse being modeled by a rather pretty girl. Hanbin sorely wishes he’d noticed the girl first. 

_You like shoes like this?_

They’re…nice shoes, nothing wrong with converse. Sure, Air Jordans are the holy grail but not everyone can have such refined tastes. Hanbin’s scrolling through his camera role, trying to find something to send back to Namjoon to show him what he’s missing, when he remembers that this is completely ridiculous. 

_Fuck off_ Hanbin types back. He’s very glad that Namjoon can’t see his face turn beet red, but he feels that it detracts from the power of his comeback nonetheless. 

The good thing is, Namjoon doesn’t answer back. Hanbin figures he’ll probably pay dearly for that further down the line, but for the time being he’s content to let Jiwon pay for that after he’s gotten some much needed shut eye.


	45. Really Bad Eggs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungkook and Taehyung are captured stowaways (Pirate AU)

Jungkook’s not sure exactly how long they’ve been tied up in the cargo hold, but he knows it’s long enough for Taehyung to be Very Hungry Indeed.

He knows this, because Taehyung will not shut up about it.

“Do you think there’s ham in one of these barrels? Pirates love ham”

“Taehyung…”

“Or chops,”

“Pirates don’t like chops, they cry about them,”

“Tears of joy!”

Jungkook groans and rolls his head back to meet the pole they’ve been tied to. Under normal circumstances he can withstand Taehyung’s boundless optimism, but right now he wishes his friend would shut up for five minutes.

The ship creaks around them, and they have to brace themselves as it lurches starboard, to prevent the ropes around their wrists pulling tight and cutting off the blood to their hands. They sit, stifled by the half dark leaking through a loan porthole further up the ship and listen for the rats, skittering amongst the ballast and eatables till the ship holds steady enough for them to gain firm footing. 

Taehyung’s stomach rumbles, “perhaps they just eat seagulls”

“Will you please stop talking about food!” Jungkook snaps. He tries to elbow Taehyung in the ribs for good measure, temporarily forgetting that his hands are tied - he misses his target, but not the pole, and swears up a storm as the the resulting pain ricochets along the joint.

“Mind you tongue there boy, the sharks love a rotten mouth.”

Jungkook freezes immediately. The voice echoes up from behind them, a casual drawl threatening to turn razor sharp should things not proceed the way the speaker wishes. They can’t see who it is, but it doesn’t take a genius to work it out.

“Oh fuck, oh FUCK,” Taehyung whines under his breath. 

Jungkook grits his teeth and listens to the sound of booted feet crossing the deck, getting closed and closer till the hem of a long coat brushes against his finger tips. 

“Y’know who I am?” the voice asks, uncomfortably close to Jungkook’s ear. He draws a shaky breath and tries to think of a witty response that simultaneously shows enough deference to not get the two of them run through with a cutlass on sight. 

Before he can get that far, Taehyung opens his mouth, “You’re captain G Dragon of the pirate ship Bigbang, scourge of East Sea, terror of Jeju, the conqueror of the Pacific Ocean, the only known Pirate to have produced a recognised fashion line,” he barely suppresses a squeal, “I’m such a big fan.”

There is a very long moment during which no one says anything. In hindsight Jungkook supposes that he should have been worrying that Taehyung’s lack of terrified respect was about to get them killed, but in the heat of the moment he is nothing sure of outraged that his friend would steal his line like that. 

Luckily for both of them, G Dragon laughs. An unassuming chuckle that spills over into high pitched giggle almost immediately, “a couple of fans are you? Thought no one would notice if you tried to pass yourself off as cabin boys?”

Yes, in fact. That’s exactly what’s going on here, though it doesn’t sound like nearly such a good idea as it had done when they were sneaking onto the ship back in Busan. 

“We sincerely wish to join your crew, sir.” Jungkook starts, “we couldn’t see how else to-”

“Save it kid, I’ve heard it all before,” G Dragon cuts him off, smile still heavy in his voice, “hold still and this’ll all be over in a moment.”

The next thing Jungkook hears is a sword being drawn from a scabbard, the hiss of metal meeting metal that is so very nearly akin to fingernails down a blackboard. He barely has time to draw breath before his brain pains the words ‘I am going to die’ across every stray thought he’s having and just like that he’s as scared as he’s ever been in his life.

He closes his eyes and flinches, expecting the blade to fall across his neck. Under normal circumstances he would fight back, but trussed up like a chicken as he is there’s nothing he can do but wait for the blood to start leaving his body. 

“That should do you,” G Dragon says. 

Jungkook opens an eye tentatively, sees the cargo bay before him, feels the distinct lack of pain coursing through his body. He’s pretty sure he’s not dead, but he reaches up to feel for slashes at his throat just to be sure. 

He finds nothing, then he realises his hands are free, “you untied me.”

“And me! And me!” Taehyung crows in delight, holding up his very much rope free hands in triumph, “thank you mister captain G Dragon sir.”

“Cap’n’s fine,” G Dragon replies. 

Jungkook looks past Taehyung to see the pirate shifting in the dark, too far back to be seen properly save for the red of his coat and the gleam of his teeth. He’s shorter than Jungkook was expecting but he’s seen enough to know that size is rarely a good indicator of strength.

It’s with wary excitement that Jungkook offers his own thanks, aware as he is that they’re far from port and if G Dragon doesn’t want them on his ship that doesn’t bode well for either of them. 

G Dragon chuckles and drops further back into the shadows, “don’t thank me yet boys, I expect you to earn your keep. I’ll see you up on deck in five, we’ll get you better acquainted with the quartermaster.”

Taehyung leans into Jungkook, bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement, “Jungkooooooookieeee!!! You know what that means, right?”

Heart thumping a mile a minute, Jungkook drags Taehyung forward towards what he can only assume is a ladder to the upper decks. 

“Ok, so we got the cabin boy job after all,” he hisses back to Taehyung, “but we can’t fuck this up, you understand?”

Taehyung grins at him, “just you wait, we’re gonna be the best pirates ever.”


	46. Blood Beat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoseok likes this, Seokjin doesn't really want to know why

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a work of fiction and if you enjoy it then that’s great! Everything I have ever read about breathplay, however, suggests that it is a sexual practice that is impossible to engage in safely and I strongly discourage anyone from partaking in it

Plastic bags are too impersonal and ropes leave conspicuous marks on his neck. Chest compression gives him the same head rush but really, he needs something at his neck to feel the full high; the choke holds Seokjin learns from the internet are too violent and he’ll be damned if he’s going to hold his own breath. 

This though, this works. Seokjin’s fingers curled around his throat, pressing down hard either side of his windpipe and constricting the flow of air to Hoseok’s lungs. 

At first it’s a minor inconvenience that he need only draw deeper breaths to work around, but Seokjin’s grip tightens slowly, silently, till there’s nothing he can do but lie there, and listen to the blood thumping through his veins in a desperate effort to find the oxygen that’s never going to come. 

“You’re so hard,” Seokjin mutters, “what the fuck is wrong with you? Aren’t you scared?”

Hoseok’s not sure if Seokjin’s trying to be demeaning, but he feels his dick jump and his stomach flip and knows that he likes it nonetheless. For as long as he’s been interested in sex he’s always wanted the upper hand, has even found himself in Seokjin’s position from time to time, but here the role reversal is so absolute as to leave him wondering if he even liked to be in control in the first place, or if he just liked to watch people lose it.

They stop, and they start. Seokjin is too good at this, he never needs to be told when to take a break. After they tried this for the first time (a happy accident, in retrospect at least), Hoseok spent several hours on the internet, trying to find out just how far a human body can be pushed. 

He can only assume that Seokjin read it all first, because without guidance or warning, he always removes his hands just as black spots begin to appear across Hoseok’s vision. Never a moment too late, rarely a moment too soon. 

Seokjin asks about it sometimes, carefully, like he’s kicking a rotting log and hoping nothing slimy falls out. Hoseok tells him about the pounding of his heart and the electric feeling one can only get when in very real danger. Sometimes, as an afterthought, he’ll mention that he likes the feeling of complete surrender, which isn’t entirely a lie, but feels like something that has opposed the truth for too long to be a major consideration. 

“I’m gonna come,” Hoseok rasps around the fingers pressing hard into his neck. 

Seokjin doesn’t say anything in response, doesn’t so much as adjust the pressure as Hoseok twitches beneath him. 

There will be bruises in the morning, nothing a little make up and a tactically placed scarf won’t fix, but Seokjin frowns at his fingers nonetheless. 

“It’s fine, I like it,” Hoseok reassures him in a hoarse whisper, before he can start questioning the moral ethics of any of this.

Seokjin nods, but he doesn’t stop frowning, “I wouldn’t do it if you didn’t”

And Hoseok’s sure there’s something more he wants to say, there’s always something more. But for now they fade into silence, and his heartbeat returns to a background murmur.


	47. From The Open Road (They Come And They Go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hindsight is for all the fools Hoseok has left behind (set predebut)

Hoseok doesn’t like Seokjin the first time they meet. He doesn’t hate him either, he doesn’t have the energy to form an opinion. He registers this new trainee with weary indifference, his hard won privilege as one of the few who made it this far. 

“Can you dance?” he asks, because in that moment it seems important. 

Seokjin shakes his head. Hoseok tells him it will be hard, then collapses into bed.

His dreams are filled with ballerinas and breakdancers, fading to black when he tries to join in. Hyosang, Yoongi and Namjoon scare themselves witless with the prospect that their music may not be taken seriously, but they’re not the only artists with their credibility on the line here. 

The eight of them collapse in a sweaty heap at the end of dance practice. Hoseok’s just about warmed to most of them enough to believe the casual arms slung around his neck and waist are imbued with genuine affection, moving past the days where they seemed predestined to mistrust one another. 

“I’m not cut out for this,” Seokjin laughs along with Hyosang. The pair of them are terrible dancers with pretty faces, they’re made for each other. 

Hoseok works himself thin, dancing long into the night with Jimin and Jungkook only to fall asleep on Yoongi’s shoulder in the studio the next morning. All of this, these boys, this music, these eyes that only fall closed when they can’t stay open any longer, is his empire. The future is uncertain, but he was raised up by Park Jinyoung and to so much as entertain the possibility of failure is Not Good Enough. 

Seokjin is quiet and calm, he stays out of people’s way, keeps to himself. He’s still learning the basics as the rest of them scramble to perfect their respective crafts. He can’t dance, he can’t rap, he can barely sing; he sits, demure and tidy amongst this mess of lost boys and claims a position of unobtrusive authority over them. Good looking, well spoken, Hoseok’s shocked to find he’s everything they’ve been missing all along. 

Namjoon shrugs, “I have no idea what Bang PD was thinking, but I like him.”

“With a face like that, how could you not?” Yoongi snorts, fingers clicking over keyboard keys in the broom closet they’re supposed to record a debut album in. 

Hoseok waits for Hyosang to butt in. Proud, fiery, stubborn Hyosang who finds a shade of humble in Seokjin’s light. But he’s busy tonight, and the next night, and the night after. His absence a gaping hole that tears itself a little wider every time someone brings it up, till all of a sudden the space he used to occupy implodes and the dorm will never seem loud enough ever again. 

And then there were seven. Again. Hoseok doesn’t like to bring up the trainees lost along the way, it’s sentimental and foolhardy. But he finds himself asking questions, dropping hints. Namjoon won’t talk about it, Yoongi mumbles something about Ikje and Donghyuk that has Hoseok biting his tongue against the all too natural rebuttal of “and Hunchul”.

Hunchul and Hoseok came up together, through the same clammy training rooms back in Gwangju. They should have made it all the way together, they should have flown, they should have soared. 

“No one’s talking about it,” Seokjin hisses across the kitchen one night, when Hoseok can’t even find the energy to ask him what he’s doing up, “he just…left. We don’t even know why, we don’t even know where he is. 

Hyosang is far across town, at Stardom Entertainment, according to what few friends Hoseok has in high up places. He doesn’t tell Seokjin as much, because that company is where dreams go to die, and he knows no one here would be able to get over the fact that Zico’s there too, as if there were a better argument for talent not guaranteeing success. 

“People come, people go,” Hoseok replies, “sometimes people stay.”

“I wish he’d stayed,” Seokjin says miserably. Hoseok nearly agrees with him.

Seokjin will get over Hyosang, he will heal. Hyosang will stare helplessly at the people he left behind and mourn his burnt bridges with embarrassing transparency. Namjoon will never talk about it. Yoongi will keep stock of the friends they’ve lost along the way. Hoseok will bite his tongue because he has better things to do than wallow in nostalgia.

“What about Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook?” Seokjin asks, “don’t they get a say?”

“It’s not the same for them,” Hoseok replies. 

Seokjin looks at him long and hard, without judgement. He doesn’t need to open his mouth to say he disagrees. “Would you miss me if I was gone?”

Hoseok turns up the music, dances a little harder, hoping someone sees him for the best he can be. “I miss everyone who leaves, but I manage.”


	48. IFU (I Fear U)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jiyong and Niccolò have a disagreement

When Jiyong stepped offstage, The Prince was already sulking. 

“Why the long face, Niccolò?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light, but dreading the argument that was bound to follow. 

Jiyong and Niccolò disagreed about very little, but the magnitude of their disagreements was enough to fool all their friends into thinking their relationship was in serious jeopardy. It was stressful, but he knew what he had been getting into when he decided to resurrect the long dead founder of modern political science. 

Niccolò scowled and turned up his nose, “you know exactly why.” For an Italian Rennaissance man who had died over four hundred years ago, he spoke remarkably good Korean. 

From behind Jiyong, the roar of a packed stadium, begging for more echoed through the backstage lounge. Niccolò huffed and muttered a series of expletives, no doubt less than complementary to VIPs, under his breath and something that sounded suspiciously like ‘i’m not cut out for this’. 

“I have to get going, gotta get ready for my encore,” Jiyong said, and left as quickly as he could. 

As he marched down the corridor to his dressing room, he could hear Niccolò screaming, “you should be dressing up as a flamethrower and setting them on fire! At least maim them a little! How many times do I have to tell you that it’s better to be feared than loved?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blame [her](http://kuopyo.tumblr.com/)


	49. This Time It's Personal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jiho holds grudges, three can play at that game

Donghyuk doesn’t miss the smug smile that crosses Jiho’s face when he breaks his huddle with Paloalto. The other judges look over at them, waiting for some indication that a decision has been made. 

Jiho fixes his expression fast. From behind those sunglasses, it’ll be impossible for the camera to pick up on just how much he’s going to enjoy this. Because it’s pretty obvious what he’s about to do, Donghyuk doesn’t need to strain himself to sense the vengeful glee hanging in the air between them. 

“Ah Supreme Boi,” Jiho sighs dramatically, “we pick the other guy.”

The Other Guy gives himself a rather sad, solitary round of applause. No one else looks particularly happy with the situation. 

No one except Jiho. 

 

His phone rings almost as soon as he’s finished giving Mnet a soundbite regarding his loss that he doubts will make it to the final cut of the show. 

“How’d it go?” Namjoon asks down the line. Donghyuk can hear the barely concealed excitement tripping off the back of his tongue. 

What a shame to have to burst his bubble, “lousy, I didn’t get through.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah”

Namjoon hums sympathetically, “Well I mean if the other guy deserved to win…”

“I dunno.”

“You don’t think he did?”

“No! Yes…it’s not like that,” Donghyuk takes a deep breath and marches himself out of immediate earshot of the other contestants, “it was Jiho.”

Namjoon is silent for so long that Donghyuk has to check his phone to make sure the line hasn’t disconnected. When the impending tirade of expletives arrives he has to shove the whole thing into his pocket to drown out the sound lest anyone else should hear.

“Yeah I know, he’s a jerk,” he mutters in response when Namjoon is done. Donghyuk hopes his boyfriend will take the hint and also lower his voice but the rather disapproving glare BeWhy casts him on the way to his recording is evidence enough that their whole conversation is ringing out loud and clear. 

“How long has it been? And he thinks he can just treat you like that?”

“Namjoon…”

“I’m gonna have words with him!”

“That’s what you always say, and then the second you actually see him you’re all smiles,” Donghyuk snorts. Namjoon’s terrible at confrontation. 

Namjoon huffs, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. It’s fine though, I’ll get him back.”

“Well I know you’ll-” Namjoon makes a rather unattractive spluttering noise when he realises what Donghyuk’s implying, “what do you mean you’ll get him back?”

Donghyuk shrugs, “I mean what I say.”

“Donghyuk…”

“Relax! I’m just gonna take him down a peg or two. And it serves him right for acting like our break up was all my fault.”

Donghyuk glances around to be sure that no one’s following him, and that no Mnet cameramen are paying him any mind, before ducking through the fire doors down to the judges changing rooms and scuttling along the corridor. He rounds a corner and, very sure that no one else is within earshot, turns his attention back to Namjoon. 

Who of course, has nothing helpful to say, “it _was_ your fault you guys broke up though.”

“Excuse you”

“Well I’m just saying,” Namjoon says carefully, “he walked in on _you_ sucking _my_ dick, not the other way around.”

This is, of course, very true. Donghyuk feels kind of bad about that one, he still flinches in embarrassment every time he thinks about Jiho wandering rather drunkenly into Ikje’s bedroom at a party to find him on his knees. They were never gonna win any ‘couple of the year’ awards but he can appreciate that it was a dick move.

It would all be rather mortifying if Jiho hadn’t so succinctly proven that two can play the ‘dick move’ game. 

“Well he’s never been angry with _you_ for it,” Donghyuk snaps, “apparently this is all _my_ fault.”

“It _is_ all your fault.”

“I thought you were outraged that he was still pissed at me because of this? It takes two to suck a dick Namjoon”

“No it doesn’t!”

A door clicks open somewhere at the other end of the corridor and the sounds of the judges voices, still far off, echoe muddily down towards him. Donghyuk grins, “I’m just gonna have a little word with him, so we can clear some stuff up.”

“What the fuck are you planning? Donghyuk? You better not fuck up my very comfortable working relationship with Woo Jiho! What are you-” Donghyuk ends the call before Namjoon can get himself too worked up. He’s probably raging in the Bangtan dorms at this very moment, but out of sight, out of mind. 

Donghyuk’s phone buzzes angrily with kakao notifications as Namjoon takes to other channels.   
Ah well, he’ll get over it. In the meantime, Donghyuk has a score to settle and a smile to wipe off Jiho’s face.


	50. Falling With Style

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi feels his horizons expand and implode, and that's just wonderful (Sense8 AU)

Yoongi blinks, and by the time his eyes have opened he’s standing on the beachfront at Haeundae, overdressed for this time of year, watching the last of the season’s swimmers dashing from the water to their towels. 

Jimin sees him staring, “the water’s not so cold at this time of year, it’s just a pain in the ass keeping warm once you’re out.”

Wind whips along the beach, but it’s not the biting European gusts that he’s been enduring for the past two weeks. Autumn here is still in full fling, and grey clouds gathering out at sea do little to dull the air of unstressed bustle that has settled over Busan. 

Yoongi unzips the front of his coat, “It’s so warm here.”

“It’s cold in Daegu?”

“I’m not in Daegu, I’m in Budapest”

“Ah,” Jimin grins, “I thought it had been a while since I last saw you.”

“You saw me last week,” Yoongi snorts, shoving Jimin affectionately on the shoulder. He’s so very real, it’s going to take a lifetime to get used to that.

The sounds of cars tearing though narrow backstreets flare up behind him, and for a moment Yoongi feels cold nipping at his finger tips. He shivers and shoves his hands into his pockets, “lets walk.”

“You’re not here right now, I can tell,” Ikje grumbles. He grabs Yoongi’s hand and pulls him down a cobbled sidestreet. The first spots of rain are in the air and the sky is already falling dark. People start to put up umbrellas as they hurry past, muttering darkly in Hungarian. 

Jimin clicks his fingers in front of Yoongi’s face, “hey!”

“Sorry, we’re on the move,” Yoongi replies, the sand feels like cobbles beneath his feet. 

“We?”

“Yeah I’m with my friend, Ikje. That guy from Busan I was telling you about.”

“I can hear you, you know?” Ikje snaps. 

Yoongi laughs, to himself and to both of them. Jimin gives him an amused glance, then threads an arm through his and marches them both down the beach. 

Budapest fades behind him, Yoongi becomes very aware of Jimin’s body heat, the weight of their arms dragging against each other. Ikje and the rain and all of Europe fade to a background concern. 

“It must be pretty early here.”

Jimin shrugs, “It’s ten in the morning, it’s not so bad.”

Yoongi shakes his head, “sounds early enough to me.”

“You gotta get out here early, leave it too late and all the space will have gone.”

Jimin stops them when they’ve passed the main crowd and have an open stretch of sand to work on. Yoongi stands back and watches him go through the motions, stretching and contracting his body to warm up his muscles before he gets started.

“You should warm up too, you know,” Jimin grins at him, “I’ve got big plans for you.”

So of course, Yoongi ignores him. He observes Jimin doing what he does, watches the waves lap against the shore, and the children playing in the foam. Sometimes he finds himself in other parts of the cluster – there’s someone in Rio, another in a very small village in northern Scotland – but Jimin is the only one he ever gets to spend any real time with.

Jimin says this is because they’re both Korean, which makes it easier to connect. Yoongi’s not going to pretend to understand how this is supposed to work but he likes having some consistency to it. He’s not good with new people, and no one’s all that brilliant at having their consciousness thrown across the globe without warning, he likes having something stable to hold on to.

“You’re staring,” Ikje snaps. He’s bundled Yoongi up against the wall of an artful old building, the likes of which would make for great photography if he had his camera with him, “I can’t even see what you’re looking at but I know you’re staring.”

Rain hangs in the air, not quite hard enough to warrant pulling up their hoods but it’s going to drench them sooner or later. On a beach in South Korea, Yoongi winces against the Hungarian rain like it’s the spray from the ocean rising up to meet him.

Ikje’s shoulder is pressed into his, knobbly and insistent. It’s warmer this way, it gives him something to keep him grounded, “he’s a dancer, he comes to the beach to practice acrobatics.”

“Why the beach?”

“Because the sand makes for a soft landing.”

“Right…didn’t you say he had a nice ass?” Ikje shoots him an impish smirk. Yoongi sorely wishes he could undo whatever drunken action led to him imparting such information to anyone.

He sniffs, “his ass isn’t the point.”

“Yeah yeah, that’s what they all say.”

“Is everything ok?” Jimin comes bounding up to Yoongi, eyes shifting nervously as if he might be able to see the man standing half a world away at his elbow.

Yoongi nods, “yeah, Ikje’s just got no patience.”

“Oh,” Jimin’s face resolves into a grin, “then better not keep him waiting.” And then he’s off across the stand, prancing and leaping and twirling through a series of moves that look as much like flying as dancing to Yoongi. He flips, he twists, he does things that look like they should be impossible.

Jimin lands for the final time and comes running up to Yoongi, red faced and out of breath, he looks so very happy to be alive, “right, your turn.”

“Ha!” Yoongi barks, “Good one.”

“I’m serious, let’s do this.”

Jimin steps into Yoongi’s personal space all too fast, so that he doesn’t know whether to step back or bop him on the nose. A hand comes up to his shoulder to hold him in place, keeping him close, and he can feel Jimin’s body heat from thousands of miles away.

“Just take a deep breath and relax, I’ll do the rest,” Jimin whisperes.

The alarm Yoongi feels must show on his face, because the next second Ikje is tugging on his sleeve, muttering furiously about how he’s happy to “do whatever to take care of that guy if you need me to,”

“It’s fine,” Yoongi tells him, though he has no idea what Jimin’s planning.

“Look at me, just breathe, ok?” Jimin says softly, and for a moment Yoongi thinks they might be about to kiss.

But then Busan falls away from under him, and all that’s left is Budapest, Ikje confused and impotent, and the persistent drizzle. Yoongi breathes deep and feels his feet step forward of their own accord. He feels so light, he feels like he could fly.

“Don’t worry hyeong, it’s just me,” Jimin laughs as Yoongi’s pulse begins to race, “I’ve got you.”

Jimin isn’t at his side or behind him or calling out from a distance. Jimin is within him, and surrounding him, and in that moment they are one and the same person.

So Yoongi moves with Jimin’s dexterity and muscle memory, runs down the lane picking up speed and feeling like he might take off at any moment. The cobbles beneath their feet aren’t as soft as the sand but they don’t need to be, they’re not going to fall.

The moment his feet leave the ground, Yoongi feels his heart fly into his mouth. It’s nothing like jumping to reach the hoop in basketball, it’s dynamic and dangerous, and as he goes head over heels in the air, quite intentionally, it’s all Jimin in control. He doesn’t even know what to call it, be it a flip or a tumble, but it’s scary and wonderful all at once and when his feet his the ground it’s all he can do to stay standing.

Ikje clatters after him, outrage painted across his face, “what was that?”

“That was Jimin,” Yoongi says, grinning, “Little shit that he is.”

“Are you alright though?”

Yoongi nods, and reaches out to sling an arm around Ikje’s shoulders. It’s good to put some of his bodyweight on someone else. “I’m fine, we both are.”

“I don’t understand how that works, like how come him being with you means you can jump like that,” Ikje grumbles, as he turns them around and starts walking back up the street.

“I have no idea,” Yoongi shrugs, “we’re still working out the details.”

“You’ll have to introduce us some time, I wanna see this kid’s face before I decide whether or not I trust him.”

“You just met him,” Yoongi replies. When Ikje asks what the fuck he’s talking about, he tips back his head and laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still have a few episodes of Sense8 to watch lmao so if I'm missing anything here I do apologise


	51. And Another One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with infinite ping pong balls

By the time Chaerin gets the call, she’s almost given up hope.

“Meet me in the studio, bring the others,” Bom breathes down the phone. She sounds hopeful, she sounds victorious. 

So Chaerin calls up Minji and Dara, bundles them into the back of a taxi and sets off for YG HQ. 

“I’m so glad she’s ready to work on her music again, I’ve missed her,” Dara grins, practically bouncing in her seat with excitement. Minji flips through her phone with an expression of calculated boredom, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth too. 

When they arrive, there’s a ping pong ball sitting squarely in the lobby. Chaerin feels her stomach drop. “It’s just a coincidence,” she says all too brightly, and no one present believes her. 

They take the elevator to the second basement and march into the studio all smiles. Sure enough, Bom is waiting to greet them with excited squeals and enthusiastic hugs, she drags them into a group embrace babbling about how much she’s missed them all. 

Through the mess of limbs and greetings, Chaerin glances over Bom’s shoulder to the studio sofa. Perched on the arm rest is a ping pong ball tube. 

The ping pong ball tube. 

Chaerin steps back abruptly, “what the fuck is that doing here?”

“Well it’s not like I could leave it at home,” Bom laughs, “the last time I did that it leaked so badly my apartment flooded with the damn things.”

Minji and Dara clock what’s going on just as a ping pong ball shoots out of the top of the tube and clatters across the floor. Looking around, several others are visible, sitting under the desk and in the crevices of the sofa. 

“I thought you were gonna get rid of that thing!” Minji yelps as another ping pong ball pops out of the tube. 

Bom shrugs, “I tried everything, even threw it in a furnace but it sped up production and pushed itself out of the flames on a bed of ping pong balls. I can’t throw it in the ocean because it’s only gonna raise sea levels twice as fast as they’re already rising. What can I say? You can’t just get rid of an infinite supply of ping pong balls, and I’ve spent long enough trying. It’s time for me to start making music again.”

“So what? You’re just bringing it back here and now it’s all of our problem?” Minji looks supremely unamused. 

“It’s not a problem though!” Bom beams, rushing over to the mixing desk to fiddle with some of the controls, “I’ve been working on some really cool beats using the sounds it makes.”

She flicks a switch and the studio fills with the sounds of ping pong balls, bouncing off things in a complex and somewhat hard to follow rhythm, but it’s not bad. There’s definitely the beginnings of an interesting beat there. 

The ping pong tube, as ever, appears to be sentient, and starts popping out balls in time to the beats coming over the speakers. Chaerin glares daggers at it, but she supposes it can stay for now.


	52. Dun Dun Dun Duuurrrn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ludwig's searching for his latest symphony

Ludwig slams through the door, his auburn hair wilder than ever. His eyes dart around the room like he’s hunting for something that might give him the slip at any moment. He passes right over Jiho, lounging out on the bed, and instead dives into the stack of pages balanced precariously over the wastepaper bin. 

“What’s up, babe?” Jiho drawls, looking up from the porn rag he’s been perusing for the better part of the morning. 

“The music,” Ludwig huffs, scattering paper across the floor hither and thither. 

Jiho frowns, “c’mon I just cleaned up! There’s no need for this.”

“I NEED MY MUSIC!” Ludwig roars, “I WAS UP TILL THREE IN THE MORNING FOR A WEEK WORKING ON IT AND NOW I CAN’T FIND THE SCORE!”

“What’s a score?” Jiho asks around a yawn. 

Ludwig flushes red enough to give Jiho cause to believe that his boyfriend may be about to spontaneously combust. “The sheet music! The thing the instruments need to know what to play! Come on man, don’t tell me I fucked the sense entirely out of you!”

“You fucked something out of me,” Jiho grins his best lopsided grin, “I’d say it came out in its entirety.”

The bin goes flying, ricocheting off the wardrobe and spilling used condoms over the clothes left festering in front of it. Jiho starts, then opens his mouth to say something about how getting stale cum all over his streetware is ‘totally not cool bro,' but Ludwig cuts him off.

“I am looking,” he says from between clenched teeth, “for the stack of papers i left in the kitchen last night. The papers with the staves and the notes on them, the papers on which my masterpiece is contained. Have you seen them?”

“Oh _those_ papers. Yeah I saw them, Kyung came over last night and we turned them into the biggest fucking spliff you’ve ever seen. Here I’ve got pictures,” Jiho reaches for his phone and starts flicking through photos to find evidence of the phenomenal blunt he and his bestie had put together the previous evening. 

He never gets a chance to show it off, Ludwig runs screaming from the room, and five minutes later the furious rumblings of the piano can be heard from downstairs. Jiho doesn’t see what the big deal is.


	53. Among The Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyung gets stuck in space, Jaehyo goes to get him back

“Three…two…one!” 

The escape pod explodes rather more abruptly than Kyung had been expecting it to. He supposes that that’s partially the effect of a film industry that has conditioned him to believe that the timer always stops at zero, and partly the fact that he’s never been in an exploding escape pod before. 

And when they say ‘exploding escape pod’, they mean that the escape pod explodes. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s entirely possible that, had Kyung not been a robot, the force of the craft ripping apart could have done some serious damage, but he was built for rougher conditions than break-up explosions, and even had the presence of mind to grab the fire extinguisher before it went up in smoke. 

It turns out that the primitive clamping devices Kyung was given in lieu of hands are poorly designed to operate fire extinguishers. The shock of the explosion has him pulling on the handle no sooner than the escape pod breaks up, and with no control over the pressure he can exert, he goes flying back towards the main spaceship at quite a pace. 

He spots something clean and silver streak past him, blue lights flashing across it’s body with alarm. 

“Jaeeeeehyooooooo!” Kyung calls back to the other robot, and pulls his finger off the trigger. 

Jaehyo stops dead as soon as Kyung passes him, then turns to follow the trail of foam hanging in the space surrounding them. Even at a distance, the lights that make up his expressions are visible, flashing angry red and worried green. 

Kyung wonders that he doesn’t start shouting at him for being so reckless, but remembers that in space they can’t hear each other. Any yelling is for naught. 

He turns the nozzle of the extinguisher around and attempts once more to get back to Jaehyo. This time they’re both very much aiming for each other, so when they miss the mark, the blue light of Jaehyo’s motion stream lights up the foam like snowflakes in car headlamps. For a moment, Kyung becomes so caught up in how pretty it looks that he forgets what he’s trying to do.

Which of course means that he fails to unclench his grip over the fire extinguisher handle until it’s way too late, and once again massively overshoots. Jaehyo’s silver carapace blends in with the mighty figure of the ship hanging in the air behind him, but the irritated orange that flashes across his screens is unmistakable. Kyung feels slightly guilty about that, but he snickers to himself nonetheless.

Of course, the sound doesn’t make it to his ears.

Third time’s the charm, and with a little fiddling Kyung works out how to release the fire extinguisher in short, sharp bursts. Slamming his thumb on and off the handle, it’s much slower than the abrupt jet of foam from earlier, but he’s meeting Jaehyo in the middle nonetheless.

Kyung looks up at Jaehyo’s plasma screen face, the perfectly animated eyebrows twisting themselves into a frown of disapproval even as his whole system blushes a happy yellow. It’s impossible not to be happy to see each other, even if Kyung suspects he’s rather given the other robot the run around over the past twenty four hours.

The problem they now face, is that they can’t communicate properly without full use of their voices. Jaehyo can flash messages across his body, but there’s no guarantee that Kyung’s space age programming would be able to interpret it, and lord knows he doesn’t have anything nearly so fancy of his own. He holds up the fire extinguisher nozzle, trying to indicate that he’s ready to go back to the ship.

Jaehyo leans forward, presumably to set Kyung on his shoulders so he can drive them both back. That’s how they’ve always operated, it’s the most streamlined method they have of getting from Point A to Point B.

Only Jaehyo doesn’t put him on his shoulders. He reaches out with his sleek, seamless arms and drags Kyung forward into a rough approximation of a hug. They hit their heads together and the angles they’re able to bend at don’t permit a proper embrace, but even in the cold of space, with their hard metal bodies, it makes Kyung feel warm and giddy.

Sparks crackle across Jaehyo’s face, he leans forward and presses himself into Kyung, till they’re both sparking electricity together. And if a hug is warm, this is piping hot oil ready to lubricate them both back to factory conditions.

Jaehyo pulls away, cheeks flaring pastel pink. He doesn’t smile, but if Kyung could, he would.

The ship is still a long way off. Kyung holds up the fire extinguisher nozzle once again and this time Jaehyo takes the queue, nodding back in the direction he’s come.

Kyung starts off slow, a few gentle squeezes of the handle, before giving up and opening the throttle. He tears off back towards the spaceship, spiraling out of control and loving every moment of it. He looks down and sees Jaehyo hot on his heels, painting the sky blue where he passes. They zip up to the ship and slip over the top, down towards the nose, twirling around each other as they fly through the black.

They flit back down towards the engines, where Jaehyo takes the lead and slips slalom around the exhaust fires. Kyung has to work hard to keep up with him, following the blue through complex flight patterns that he would never dare attempt on his own. It’s not till they even out to fly straight along the side of the ship that he can start to gain ground again, drawing level with Jaehyo to watch the beads of yellow popping over his face before tearing ahead, daring each other to go faster.

And when the fire extinguisher runs out, Jaehyo falls into place, ready to catch Kyung. He’s smiling lightly, and even though he’s been caught he doesn’t mind. Electricity crackles between them, and around them space continues on.


	54. La Vie En Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seokjin dances the same old dance, he doesn't expect to trip.

First impressions last a lifetime, Seokjin knows how to reset that particular clock. Be it handshakes or laughter or eyes locked across a crowded room, he’s learned how to draw people in all over again. When you have that kind of power, reputation is a moot point. He can be a right rotten bastard one month, and an unparalleled delight the next, it’s as easy as walking up to an old friend and pretending you have never seen them before in your life. 

People don’t like feeling left out of the loop, Seokjin finds this less hasssle than apologising. He marches up to Namjoon, holds out a hand to shake, straight back stiff upper lip the starch of his collar crackling as he fights back a smile too personal to be the first of many. 

Namjoon hesitates. They always hesitate. Here are the options - take what is infront of you in as good a grace as you can manage. Don’t protest, don’t ask questions. When the rising tides of all that has come before rise up and threaten to overwhelm you, hold fast. There’s no need to cause scandal or drag out bitter memories in the form of cold shoulders and sleepless nights. Shake the hand, wipe the slate clean, move on. 

Or, take things as they are. Call this a farce and walk away. You can choose to keep this sordid chapter of your life in the public eye and watch the people around you divide themselves into those who support you and those who do not and know that neither are on your side. For a short while you will be the talk of the town, then you will be nothing. The scandal will end you. 

Seokjin always chooses option one. He chooses it with such ferocity that any fool who might think to dance the dreaded dance of bad publicity is cowed into following his lead. He has walked into rooms and watched a countess sign away her chance at inheritance, a duke fall upon the sword of inaction, seen servants swallow rumours that could unseat empires - all of this with no more effort than a smile. 

“You wouldn’t want to cause a fuss.” 

Just for a moment, Namjoon wavers. Seokjin doesn’t think about the smell of the young duchess’s perfume drifting up from beneath his clothes, he’s had his fair share of other women. 

So here’s what’s at stake - is the knowledge that you broke a heart worth inciting a riot over. All the bodies Namjoon has had pressed against him that were not Seokjins, all the many nights when they should have both been alone but only one of them was, just how badly do you want to keep those memories? Shake a hand, sign a contract, throw that life away and start over. You only have as many first impressions as you let yourself have. 

Namjoon reaches out, they shake, “of course not,” he smiles. 

This time round there will be no secret rendezvous and there will be no clandestine meetings in the small hours of the night. Seokjin shrugs off the weight of everything that has passed between them and the story of his life gains another empty page. 

The frayed edges of the page that had to be torn out in it’s place are still noticeable, however. The cut of his suit may be as neat as any other man here, but when Namjoon smiles he has too many sharp edges, dust gathering in corners that cannot be fully swept out. This is not a first impression, this is deja vu. 

“You should come out to the country some time, it’s lovely this time of year,” Namjoon mumbles vaguely over wine that’s too expensive to taste this bad. You have to steal yourself for the acidic bite at the back of your tongue and pretend that you don’t know you are swallowing pig swill. 

Over by the buffet table, the mayor’s daughter is dressed in silver satin, her eyes drawn to Namjoon in exactly the same way Seokjin’s are. You can’t spot the trajectory of this story from first impressions, you need experience to see the bigger picture. 

Seokjin swallows his pride, it’s not worth the scandal, “what was it you said your father did?”

“Oh please,” Namjoon scoffs, but his eyes are on the mayor’s daughter. No remorse, no recollection, no regrets. 


	55. Wide Eyes, Not So Whimsical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon D/Suga, established relationship, warning for non explicit discussion of mental illness

Most days, Yoongi’s mood is an afterthought. He’s a bit happy or a bit grumpy or a bit tired. Tired is a powerful emotion, Kiseok feels it faster and faster these days, he’s only thirty two for fuck’s sake. 

Point being, nothing ever deviates too far from the norm, which is less standoffish than it thinks it is, a little hot headed, cuddly in the mornings. Yoongi slips in and out of Kiseok’s apartment like clockwork - they have a routine - and talks in loud grumbles about his day and his friends and his group mates and whatever else goes on when Kiseok’s not watching. 

Kiseok’s pretty good at watching, Kiseok can really pay attention when he wants to. 

“You alright?” he slides Yoongi a box of take out chicken from the place down the street.

Yoongi’s eyes are glassy, his shoulders tight around his ears. His mouth hangs open like there’s a thought trying desperately to escape from it that will not be dislodged. He shakes himself free of his stupor and his shoulders are still tense, “I’m fine.”

That’s pretty normal. Kiseok takes a bite of chicken and lets him be.

 

Three days is a long time for Kiseok to go without texting someone, for Yoongi it would appear to be more or less standard. It’s a shame, there are dinner dates and movie nights they miss out on when he doesn’t pick up his phone, but it can’t be helped. If he was trying just a little less hard to be cool, Kiseok might make a fuss, but it’s easier not to start silly fights in the first place.

 _C u 2night?_ Kiseok send off, tries not to get his hopes up.

Two hours later, he gets a reply. Pretty good going. _Don’t think I can. Sorry. Working on some stuff._

Kiseok’s heard that before. _You sure you don’t wanna be distracted? ;)_

 _We’ll do something on Tuesday._ Yoongi replies.

Kiseok is cool, he doesn’t go chasing after people like that. He doesn’t say anything when the snapchat Yoongi sends him less than an hour later has clearly not been taken anywhere near the studio.

 

“I gotta go,” Yoongi jumps up from the sofa in a rush.

Kiseok resents the empty space he leaves, “for real? Already?”

Yoongi’s already half way to the door, throwing on outdoor clothing and checking his phone with a pointed intensity that doesn’t seem entirely natural. Kiseok gets up to show him out, trying not to sulk, trying not to be miffed but…

“C’mon, you can stay another couple of hours. I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to show you,” he grins, wiggles his eyebrows. When all else fails sex is normally enough of a reason for Yoongi to pull his shit together.

Yoongi sighs, bites his lip. He’s thinking, not in a ‘what I have to do verses what I want to do’ sort of way. Kiseok knows what that looks like, it’s a bit irritable and doesn’t like it but chooses what is necessary over what is nice. This is the indecision of someone who doesn’t know what they want. Why would Yoongi not know? Where does he want to be that isn’t right here?

“I have to go,” Yoongi breathes.

Kiseok shrugs, disappointed, watches him go. It bugs him though, something doesn’t quite add up here. Yoongi was smiling just half an hour ago, happy to go along with whatever. It doesn’t make sense.

 

Calls in the middle of the night are not completely unheard of, they both keep odd hours, after all. Sometimes it’s a booty call, sometimes a drunk dial, sometimes the world feels so wide at night that it’s only fair that they share it with someone. Kiseok sees Yoongi’s name pop up on the front of his phone, blinking away sleep from a rarely snatched early night. He’s not best pleased.

“What?” he snaps.

“Hey! I just…um…it’s late I just wanted to…” Yoongi’s breathing too much, speaking too fast. Kiseok scowls.

“Spit it out.”

“We had a late schedule for some bullshit idol business…thing. Anyway I hate people don’t you just..hate people sometimes?”

Kiseok wants to slam the phone down and let Yoongi deal with his late night nihilism on someone else’s watch – he’s tired, he doesn’t want to be having this conversation. But something feels off, either too light or too heavy, he can’t quite work out which, but his gut tells him that he has been called because Yoongi knows he’ll stay on the line.

“Are you alright?” Kiseok asks. He can already see Yoongi’s glassy stare, everyone stares off sometimes, nothing weird about it. Everything weird about it. He’s not sure, it feels like he’s crossing unseen boundaries just by entertaining the idea that anything about this is wrong, and yet it’s wrong.

“I’m fine,” Yoongi replies tightly. Then he rattles off some bullshit story about a couple of idols Kiseok doesn’t know and a security guard. It doesn’t sound very important and so he stops paying attention.

 

Kiseok’s a crybaby at heart, he doesn’t mind saying as much. His emotions get the better of him more often than not and that’s fine. He’d rather feel big and brash than pretend he doesn’t feel.

Every time the mixtape ends he goes back to the first track and starts over. He still hasn’t told Yoongi what he thinks. Fuck, he’s not even really listening to the music, he’s listening to all the parts of their conversations that have been missing, kicking himself for not being just a bit pushier, just a bit more clingy.

He feels numb, and angry, and sad. He doesn’t think crying will help.

 

It takes three hours and ten phone calls for Yoongi to pick up, Kiseok’s about ready to go marching over to his dorm.

Kiseok in Yoongi’s dorm is a hard limit, no go zone. He’d be in the dog house for a month making up for it, but he’s willing to go that far, if that’s what it takes. No more half measures.

“Jesus fucking Christ you took your time,” Kiseok collapses onto the sofa, “what was all that about?”

“What was that about?” There’s a note of bemused indulgence in Yoongi’s voice. He doesn’t sound distant or distracted or wrong, he sounds like he’s supposed to sound. Like he always sounds, until he doesn’t.

Kiseok doesn’t know where to begin to start, so he starts at the impetus. “That fucking mixtape.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“That’s really not the point,” Kiseok winces, kicking himself internally for saying it like that. He can practically see Yoongi shrinking in on himself, he’s not as good at taking criticism as he’d like to be, “Yoongi, you shouldn’t go airing your shit out like that.”

“It’s my shit, I’ll air it where I like,”

“Where you want to air it and where’s good to air it are two different things, _trust me_.”

“I don’t know wh-“

“As someone who’s been doing this for a lot longer than you, trust me,” Kiseok finds his pacing, slows down, lets his voice settle into a tone less accusatory and more comforting, “you gotta be careful what you put out there.”

There is silence, and for a long moment Kiseok worries that Yoongi will think up an excuse to end this conversation and things will proceed as normal.

“It just…” Yoongi starts quiet, “it feels so much better to get it out.”

“You have friends, don’t you?”

“Yeah but…I dunno man I’m not sure it makes much difference if I talk to a friend or if I talk to a mic.”

Of course he doesn’t, he’s still so goddamn young. Kiseok feels tired just thinking about it, “It makes all the difference. The people who are listening to this, they don’t know you like that. But they think they do. Mixing this kind of shit with your fans can only go so far before it gets nasty.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Yoongi sounds miserable.

“Talk to me!” Kiseok smiles despite himself, the simple things always come hardest.

They both stop, take pause. Trapped in the headlights, nowhere to run.

“Not right now,” Yoongi says, “I’ll see you Thusday just…not tonight.”

Tuesday is three days away. Kiseok has just enough patience to stretch that far.


	56. I've Done Alright Up Till Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoseok's still learning from Jaebum, after all this time (part of the great Bangtan at AOMG au)

How fucking predictable. All this space, all this time, and here they are squashed into one corner of the dance studio, moving like someone might cut the audio off at any moment. Hoseok sees his reflection, the way his brow furrows in concentration and his hair sticks to his forehead, but he doesn’t feel like he’s really connected to the sparse collection of limbs staring back at him. It looks entirely too driven, too focused on the dance at hand.

Next to him, Jaebum looks seamless. It’s to be expected really, the guy quite literally taught Hoseok everything he knows.

Ok, maybe not everything, but enough. Way back when JYP had them both under the same wing, a lifetime ago, there had been other dance studios. The trainees had relished the scant few training sessions they received from bona fide idols, regardless of how worthwhile the experience of standing in their presence ever was. Park Jaebum though, he is and always has been professional, approachable, and driven. After all this time, being back under the same label as him really isn’t so bad.

You wouldn’t know it from looking at him, of course. He dresses like a teenage boy who has just discovered the rich kids of instagram and uses American slang like he expects everyone to marvel at his linguistic prowess every damn time. But he’s alright. He’s still a good teacher.

“You gotta hit the jump harder on the second line of the chorus.” Jaebum says. It breaks Hoseok’s concentration, brings him crashing back into the present. He sees his reflection come to a halt.

No one goes to adjust the music. Hoseok shakes out his shoulders and rewinds his steps, the flow of the song is all wrong but the rhythm is still right for him to run through the move again. His ankle protests, and all it takes is a few steadying steps to the left before he’s crashing into Jaebum.

All this damn space…Hoseok doesn’t say. He likes it like this, dancing is easier in close proximity to your partner, Jaebum taught him that.

Jaebum laughs, reaches out a steadying hand to hold Hoseok up, “easy there. Take it slow the first time.”

He does take it slow, it still doesn’t look quite right. Jaebum demonstrates again, exaggerating his movements to a point that would be funny if he didn’t manage to make it look so smooth. Hoseok watches him like a hawk, trying to spot the point at which he loses track. But when Jaebum dances it doesn’t look like him, and instead his eyes keep demanding to know how a person can move like that - how many hours of practice and space and time?

After three more tries he still can’t get it. The track has moved on and the rhythm doesn’t match any more, but they’re still trying, eyes fixed on each other’s in the mirror. Jaebum stops him, sets a hand just above his waist like he’s about to guide Hoseok through the dance personally.

A big room that they have made small, no one around to see. It’s so damn easy to see how this ends. Hoseok isn’t Yoongi and he’s certainly not Kiseok, he has patience for many things but not for delaying the inevitable. Jaebum’s other hand comes up to rest on his hip and just for a moment their reflections are indistinguishable.

“Like this?” Hoseok hisses, pulling Jaebum round, pushing him against the mirror and crashing their lips together.

Jaebum kisses back, a hand flying out to brace himself against the glass, fingers scrambling for purchase. “Fuck yeah,” he breathes, “you’re a fast learner.”

Hoseok presses on with the dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston bc it has been stucck in my head for two weeks and I'm still not bored of it


	57. One Step Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi and Kihyun sneaking out to smoke, Kihyun keeping Yoongi's ass in line

Kihyun vapes, because of course he does. He’s a singer so smoking is off the table, but the right mix of nicotine and bad habits will keep you alert and take the edge off your appetite. That’s far too valuable for an idol to pass up. 

He must have smoked once upon a time though. Yoongi takes a drag of his cigarette and bites his tongue to keep from laughing when Kihyun’s eyes go wide, following the trail of smoke disappearing into the early evening air. 

They’re squeezed into an alcove that serves as the only real blind spot available at MBC (who don’t put nearly enough effort into maintaining the talent’s privacy if anyone’s asking Yoongi. Not that anyone is asking Yoongi. Why the fuck would anyone care what he had to say?). It’s not raining, but soon enough it will be. They’re in a race against time to finish what they’ve started before they get drenched. 

Smoke is met with vapour, smelling of fake apple flavouring, like those shitty sweets Namjoon found in America. Yoongi can’t say he approves but he’s not exactly in a position to pass up Kihyun’s company. 

“I just feel like I could have done more with the last album, you know? I’m better than this, but I need practice if I’m ever gonna progress.”

Kihyun makes a face, “didn’t you just drop a mixtape?”

“Yes but-”

“And you produced a track on the album.”

“Ok, no that was-”

“And you’ve been writing and producing shit for yourself since you first became an idol?”

Yoongi scowls and shakes his head, raises the cigarette to his lips once again and inhales too hard. He has to swallow his coughs but it’s worth it, to keep composure. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” Kihyun’s voice is sharp, painfully quick off the mark as always. Yoongi spares him a glance out of the corner of his eye and spots a pair of bright eyes cutting through the smoke and fog. He knows the speech, the one about sold-out arena tours and best selling albums, fan adoration, youtube views through the roof. It’s not that he’s not grateful, but it doesn’t fill the space he so carefully left in his life for music. 

They’ve had this argument a hundred times, and Kihyun always wins. He’s got more practice at this. A silence falls between them, born of anticipation, but Yoongi doesn’t feel much up to a fight. 

Kihyun huffs, “that’s what I thought. Honestly, I swear this industry does something to you rappers’ heads. I get the same nonsense from Jooheon at least once a week. You gotta work out how to be happy with the blessings you have rather than the ones you wish you had. You’re not gonna be famous forever.”

At his most self righteous, Yoongi might say the he doesn’t care whether he’s famous or not. It’s a bare faced lie, but whatever. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t count. They’ll finish up soon enough and head back inside, to the lights the camera and the action. He has to trust that he’ll be glad of it all some day. 


	58. Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chulgoo thinks idols make things very hard on themselves

It should be more difficult than this, surely. The mad dash from the car, the three hundred or so layers of clothing to disguise their frames, the fake names, fake smiles. Only a handful of people have the slightest idea that they know each other, let alone that they’re together in this moment. It’s inconvenient, sure, but it’s not hard. Chulgu can’t count the hours he’s spent listening to Chanmi complaining that she isn’t allowed out or that the company don’t approve of her seeing women so they won’t help her date. 

“Seolhyun and Jimin get to go see any boy they want,” she grumbles, slouched over her lyrics sheet. They both know she doesn’t really care about how good her raps sound on record, and her lack of interest prevents Chulgu from being any kind of a good teacher. He sits back and listens, a cheap stand in for a proper therapist. God, imagine if the things she said ever made it outside these walls. She’s never exactly asked him to keep his mouth shut, he should probably consider that a badge of trust. 

Yoongi’s shorter than Chanmi, less open, less trusting. He’s not all that interested in dating girls. He looks at Chulgu out of the corner of his eye, all the way to the motel room door; he’s either very good or has had a lot of practice. They don’t talk much, to get so far as kissing feels like a monumental effort as they fight through the tension in the air. It’s not hard. Fuck, it’s so fucking easy. The hard part comes when your bones are laid bare and you have to hope that whatever happens in this room stays here. 

There are stories of Min Yoongi. He’s promiscuous and uninterested in maintaining much secrecy. He’s not the first idol to balance himself on the knife’s edge and he won’t be the last. Chulgu wants to tell him how easy this could be, how the Seoul hip hop community have each others backs when it comes to this shit. He would still need to hide from the cameras, but when he made it to the motel room people would know where he was and who he was with. 

That’s what Chulgu wants to say, he loses the words about the same time Yoongi starts unbuttoning his fly. Right. Of course. There will be time for words later. 

Once upon a time Chulgu tried to kiss Chanmi, because she was so good at this game she almost forgot how to stop playing. She had set a hand on his chest, pushed him away, “I don’t like guys.”

He heard about Yoongi the same way everyone hears about Yoongi - a friend of a friend wound up in a bathroom with him at a thing. He’s supposed to be brilliant, he’s supposed to be easy. It hadn’t taken much effort to get hold of his kakao ID. 

So as long as they’re not face to face they talk about music, TV, whatever. Sometimes they venture into politics but Yoongi isn’t all that well read on the matter, and Chulgu winds up arguing with himself. It’s nice, it’s not so hard. It makes up for the fact that when they’re together, in the flesh, there never seems to be enough space for words. 

“Of course I don’t regret becoming an idol,” Chanmi smiles. Chulgu isn’t sure if she’s acting, he hasn’t been trained to tell the difference. It’s her word against the universe. 

Yoongi moves them back towards the bed, stripping off his clothes and breathing heavy. He’s ridiculously pretty, mannequin skin glowing and dewy even under the harsh glare of the motel light. Chulgu knows he can kiss him, isn’t sure if he knows much more. 

The bed feels tiny with the two of them on it. Yoongi lying prone, like he doesn’t know that the tension in his shoulders would be visible a mile away. Chulgu takes a steadying breath and leans down to close the distance between them. “What do you want?”


	59. Noot Noot On The Stroot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big Byung as Mafia Penguins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of Big Byung are intended to be different speciies of penguin in this. This fact has absolutely no bearing on the story, but if you’re curious, their species are as follows: 
> 
> Hakyeon - [Emperor Penguin](http://68.media.tumblr.com/a86317d91e71190334798197e8f14735/tumblr_inline_ojzv2nE9Yw1relvbr_500.jpg)  
> Jackson - [Royal Penguin](http://68.media.tumblr.com/bc6d9f3acdb71a20b2557a4a7a874ae3/tumblr_inline_ojzv3alB2x1relvbr_500.jpg)  
> Sungjae - [Yellow Eyed Penguin](http://68.media.tumblr.com/85f440087c17494bc0042adec3b1db02/tumblr_inline_ojzv3n5GCB1relvbr_500.jpg)  
> Sanghyuk - [Adelie Penguin](http://68.media.tumblr.com/2a102093008f2f2d5e3d44104e0da6d0/tumblr_inline_ojzv4ffFWl1relvbr_500.jpg)

“Have you got the stuff?” Jackson squarked. 

Hakyeon looked down his beak at the diminutive little penguin, unable to decide how seriously it should be taken. In the short time he had known Jackson, he had come to the conclusion that he was a bird of unusual humour, prone to blurring the lines between joke and sincere interest. 

With a great fluffing of his feathers, Hakyeon retracted his neck and settled back on his haunches. “I have the fish for dinner, if that’s what you mean,” he clacked his break. 

“I think that’s what I mean,” Jackson squarked, louder than before. 

“That’s not what he means,” came a chattering from the back of the room. They were camped out in a maintenance closet just off the London sewer system, and though the smell was unpleasant the stone walls induced an echo that was satisfyingly dramatic. 

From a darkened corner of a room that was all darkened corners, emerged a penguin with a dangerous glint in it’s eye. Sungjae, the youngest and most precocious little seabird that Hakyeon had ever encountered in this line of work. When he had a plan, it was usually dangerous, stressful, and profitable as all hell. 

To Hakyeon’s right, Sanghyuk appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, “what’s the plan, boss?”

“Sungjae’s not the boss, Hakyeon’s the boss!” Jackson cut in. 

Sanghyuk shook his head like he was trying to dislodge the image of Sungjae in a seat of power from his mind, “right. What’s the plan, penguin?”

With a great excited clacking of his beak, Sungjae leaned in conspiratorially, “I hear the Thames is a whole lot cleaner than anyone would have you believe, and if you’re willing to risk being sighted by a few humans you can make a killing out there.”

That got all their attention. Hakyeon glanced over his shoulder just to be doubly sure that their unit hadn’t sprung a fifth member when he wasn’t looking, “how much fish are we talking.”

“A whole lot more than you’ve brought us back for dinner that’s for sure.”

Hakyeon could believe it, a whole river full of fish was too good an opportunity to pass up. All they’d have to do was find a base closer to the river, human proof it, catch enough fish to bribe the seagulls down at the port, then head home to Antarctica. It sounded simple enough, though of course, these things rarely were. 

“I’ve got a major stress headache brewing,” Sanghyuk whistled sadly. Jackson immediately set about gently patting him with his flippers by way of comfort. 

“No need for stress headaches! Not this time, I think we all learned our lesson back in Seoul. No,” Sungjae clicked, “I’ve thought of a way we can do this stress free. But before we get started, we’re gonna need some back up.”

“You don’t mean-” Hakyeon started, but before he could finish Jackson had followed Sungjae’s line of thought to it’s logical conclusion. 

“We’re breaking into the zoo?” he crowed, rocking backwards and forwards so that his feet slapped loudly against the concrete floor.

“You could say that,” Sungjae chirruped with a wry shake of his tail, “but it would be more accurate to say we’re breaking someone out. Several someone’s in fact. I hear London Zoo has a very well populated penguin exhibit. Listen…”

Hakyeon extended his neck to it’s full length, interest well and truly peaked. He listened to Sungjae’s plan with excitement. With brains like this on their side, they’d be back home in no time. 


	60. I Couldn't See For The Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AOMG's awesome, but not in the ways you'd expect
> 
> (YoonKiseok. Set in a fun universe where Bangtan move to AOMG and live happily ever after)

The best thing about AOMG is not the sofas at the back of every studio, or the ease with which new equipment can be purchased and installed. It’s not the support of fellow artists who genuinely want to see each other reach their full potential, nor is it the lack of a concrete schedule and dance classes. It’s not the cameras being pulled from their faces, or the ability to step outside the building without someone reeling them back in, or even the removal of the goody two shoes masks they’ve all been wearing for so long. The best thing isn’t being able to eat whatever they want. It’s not finally getting out of the dorm. 

No, the best thing about AOMG is the time. So much of it, handed out like it’s nothing. Their obligation to the company is measured in albums rather than years and they can take as long as they want to pull together and create something they can be proud of. No one comes banging on the studio door two hours from a deadline to remind them that if they can’t write the thing themselves Pdogg will do it, and if they can’t hit all the notes autotune will still be there for them. 

Which isn’t to say autotune is not still there for them. Now that it’s not being held like a sword over his head, Yoongi can actually see the value in it’s song saving powers. It’s particularly useful when the others have given up on the production process and there are still kinks to be ironed out. 

It’s pretty difficult to blame them for getting bored. Now that he can have full control Yoongi, all but insists on it and Namjoon and Hoseok’s attempts to join in with the technical aspects of their music have been getting more infrequent. Leave the writing to them - Namjoon was always the better lyricist and Hoseok invariably finds a new way to approach a track that none of the rest of them might have considered. On reflection, Yoongi has come to realise he’s something of an average rapper. But he’s learned enough about production from Bang PG, Pdogg and Slow Rabbit to give him a fair start, and when he really gets stuck Gray is usually happy to help out. 

Sunghwa, not Gray. It’s been months and Yoongi’s still getting used to the change. 

He sits, basking in the glow of the mixing board, one headphone held to his left ear as he fiddles with the bass setting. He is alone and unhurried. For the first time in a long time, he might even be at peace. 

The soft click of the door swinging open drags Yoongi’s attention away from the track he’s working on. He twists in the producer’s chair to see the familiar figure of Kiseok lolloping into the room, practically drowning in one of his various oversized hoodies and smelling strongly of fried food. There was never any confusion with names there, Simon D or SsamD or whatever never quite fit right. 

Kiseok catches Yoongi’s eye and his face splits into a lopsided grin, “how’s it going?”

“S’going good. Wanna listen?”

Kiseok cocks his head like he’s thinking about it but Yoongi already knows that he’s going to say no. It’s becoming something of a routine for two of them: late night sessions where Kiseok demands something of Yoongi in exchange for his opinion. 

Only Kiseok rarely asks for anything for himself. Sure, one night he insisted that Yoongi go back over old Bangtan choreography for the entertainment factor but that was a one off thing. Usually he asks that Yoongi take half an hour off, or go get a drink with him, or just plain reminds him that he’s not working to anyone else’s deadline. 

“Still gotta grind for it,” Yoongi replies. 

Kiseok drops onto the sofa in the corner and pulls a box of fried chicken out of the depths of his hoodie. “You’re not wrong kid. You also gotta eat.”

“Just five more-”

“Now!” Kiseok’s not angry, even the insistent tone of voice he uses when he’s short on patience is relative light. There’s something in his eyes though, something soft yet intent that never fails to stop Yoongi dead in his tracks. 

Besides, the chicken does smell good. Yoongi wrestles himself to his feet and makes his way over to the sofa. He lets himself be pulled into a half hug, instinctively gravitating towards Kiseok’s body heat. He’s always so warm, like a great hearth waiting to tempt Yoongi to idleness. 

“Open wide,” Kiseok purrs, picking up a piece of chicken and flying towards Yoongi’s mouth like he’s feeding a child. 

It’s impossible to tell if it’s supposed to be patronising or sweet, but as long as he’s allowed into this warm little pocket of the world, Yoongi can’t say he cares to see the difference. He opens wide, bites down, he’s still not used to tasting grease and not feeling guilt immediately congeal at the back of his mouth. 

Kiseok hands over the drumstick so that Yoongi can go to town on it and selects a thigh for himself. The best part is that they can take as long as they want with this, they have all the time in the world. 

“Thanks hyeong,” Yoongi says, two drumsticks and a thigh down and starting to get rather full. 

“No worries,” Kiseok replies. His hand slides down to wrap around Yoongi’s waist, pulling him in closer. Neither of them says a thing but it’s impossible to ignore, the drag between their bodies, like maybe one night they’re going to close the distance all together. 

One night. Not tonight. Yoongi doesn’t allow himself too much longer on the sofa before he brings a set of headphones over for Kiseok to listen to the track. But he does allow himself some time, to enjoy the sensation of being held and fed and cared for. It’s the start of something, of that much he is sure, and one of the better things about AOMG is that when the time comes he can explore that at his own pace. No stress, no deadlines. Perhaps this is what it feels like to achieve inner peace.


	61. Jumalauta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namjoon is a cardamom merchant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written at the request of a Finnish friend who informs me that google translate is awful for Finnish. 
> 
> My sincere apologies to any Finns reading this

There are few things more wonderful than finding someone who has never sampled a Pod before. Not the seeds, dried and drained of half their flavour, or the chemicals that they use to infuse mass made tea. True cardamom, bleeding across the tongue from an open wound in the husk. Once upon a time, Namjoon saw people grab them by the handful and bite down quite on purpose - to freshen the breath, or so they’d said. That had been Afghanistan, this was Finland. Things were different here.

“Kardemumma?” people ask, holding the Pods up to the light, squinting at them like they expect them to vanish into thin air. “Se ei tunnu kardemumma”

That’s what they all say. Scandinavians are a whole lot more predictable than they would like to think. Namjoon hangs back, thinks for a moment. Finnish isn’t anything like Swedish or Norwegian and so he can’t trust his proficiency in either to tide him over here. 

“I vahvista se on kardemumma,” Namjoon says slowly. His accent’s all wrong. He’ll have to get better at this if he wants to do business here regularly. 

He’s still fumbling with the words for ‘taste it’(voit maistaa sitä) when a child comes running up to him, grabs a Pod from his hand and shoves it into their mouth. For a moment, there is silence as the scant crowd gathered watches those little jaws chew. Namjoon’s heart sets to racing, unable to bear the wait between action and reaction. This is what really blows people’s heads off, what really gets them on his side. 

The child cries out and spits out the Pod. The mistake would be to think that that was it. It takes no time at all for curious adults to start wondering if such a reaction is merited, so they take Pods of their own, they bite down, they spit them out. 

They smile. “Maku on niin voimakas. Aion ostaa kilon”

Everyone wants to buy, you just have to be willing to take the time to convince them of as much. The taste may be strong, repulsively so to the untrained, but it is unique and pure and worth paying for. And best of all, their cinnamon rolls will never have tasted quite so good. 


	62. Vikings With Phones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyung's a little soft, so he gets the unglamourous task of shellfish hunting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one gets a little morbid - warning for plenty of talk of hunting and dead animals

It was a cold day out on the shore. Too cold, Kyung would have said, if there had been anyone around to listen. He wriggled further into his reindeer skin cape and continued the slow march down the beach, looking for shellfish. 

He had a fair haul stored in his pack, mostly cockles with a few mussels thrown in. He had been lucky enough to find a crab back when the sun had been veering east but it had pinched his fingers and put up such an awful fight that he felt bad about dooming it to the fire. Kyung wasn’t planning on telling the others about that in a hurry, they already thought him soft. 

Even then, Taeil and Minhyuk were further inland, trying to spear trout from the river. Kyung had joined them once, and when he managed to hit a fish it was not a killing shot. The poor thing had writhed around on the rocks, bleeding and suffocating while he looked on, hands unwilling to bash it’s brains out like he knew he should. 

Taeil had rolled his eyes and told him to go berry picking. That had been the spring, this was late autumn. There were no berries left to pick now. 

The fishing trip had, at the very least, been more of a success than Kyung’s handful of hunting trips he had taken with Jihoon and Yukwon. Jihoon had been determined to make a hunter of him, and insisted that he keep tagging along long after it became obvious he didn’t have the stomach to snare a rabbit, much less shoot down an elk. Every arrow that passed into Kyung’s hands was wasted. 

Kyung didn’t even want to think about what Jaehyo was doing. He knew it involved long periods hunkered down in the reeds of the bog out west, waiting for water fowl to land. Minhyuk sometimes made a comment about broken necks and messy feathers. Kyung preferred to eat his dinner without asking. 

So here he was, on a frozen beach, picking out the juiciest looking shells to share with the others. Perhaps they would come back with a good haul, and they could spend the next couple of days setting up smoke huts to preserve what meat and fish they had for the coming winter. 

Aside from berry picking and beachcombing, one thing Kyung could say for sure was that he was very good at telling time. Jihoon was overenthusiastic and often arrived back at camp long after the sun had fallen below the skyline, especially at this time of year. Right now he would say that he had a couple of hours before the light was too bad to see where he was treading, which meant an hour before he should start heading back. 

Or at least. That was the plan. 

The buzzing of his phone, attached to the inner lining of his cape by a thin leather cord, shocked Kyung more than he would like to admit. The electronic devices were common among Viking clans, and certainly made long distance communication a lot easier. Apparently way up in Lapland, people were still using smoke signals and horns to communicate, and were still having to live with common miscommunication. 

“Hello?” Kyung liked to pretend he didn’t know who was calling, though there was only one person who would be calling him at this time of day. 

“I’m bored.” Jiho whined down the phone, “when are you getting back?”

“How are you bored? I thought you had a longboat to finish!”

“I do! But like…I’ve finished all the carving and stuff so the wood needs to settle for a month before I can varnish. What am I gonna do till then?”

Kyung looked around him, like another crab might appear to share his incredulity at his chief’s impatience. Only Jiho could reach the end of a task and feel dissatisfied with rest. “Why don’t you join one of the hunting parties?”

Jiho blew a raspberry down the phone, and Kyung instinctively held it away from his ear like the spittle might be able to travel the same distance as the sound.  “Fine.” He grumbled, “I’m on my way back now.”

And off Kyung set, his collecting bag not quite as full as it might be. He supposed he could put them on the fire early, enjoy a snack before the others got back. That seemed like as good a reason as any Jiho was posing to head home. Still, thank goodness for his phone. Once the journey home had started, it seemed impossible to envisage a scenario where he braved the sea chill an hour longer. 


	63. Who's That Sitting In My Kitchen?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karl Marx is alive and in the South Korean military Just roll with it.

Army life was hard. Not least because Seunghyun was expected to sleep on an uncomfortable little block of a bed that was almost indistinguishable from every other piece of furniture in the barracks. For the first few nights he had tried to convince himself that there was something admirable about the absolute uniformity of military design, but minimalism had only ever been fun for him when it drew focus to something uniquely odd. 

His bed the same as every other bed, the chairs in the dorms the same as those in the kitchens, even his clothes were identical in every way to those of every other soldier. Jiyong was going to have a rough time of it when he eventually called up, it gave Seunghyun a headache just thinking about it. 

He was trying not to think about Jiyong too much, or anyone on the outside. The army wasn’t supposed to be a prison but it functioned in more or less the same way. Visiting was prohibited, getting out was temporary at best, no phones. No instagram. If he’d just been able to take a few photos, Seunghyun was sure he could turn some aspect of this physically arduous, aesthetically dull landscape into into art. 

The CO woke them at five every morning, and they had to be dressed with a tidy bunk before they were allowed to go to breakfast. Meals were served in the mess, lines of soldiers jostling for space and overcooked rice. Sometimes, when Seunghyun concentrated very hard, he was able to convince himself that it had an aftertaste reminiscent of steak, or fine wine. Jesus Christ, he’d only just gotten here and he was already planning his first few days when he got out. The food, the people, the sweet sweet privacy. 

The only privacy afforded by the army was in the two hours downtime they were allowed in the evenings. Most of the guys in the barracks would use the time to play football or cards. Still working out how to bond with one another, forming friendships. Seunghyun supposed he’d have a better time of it if he did the same, but he was a loner by nature and the few times he had tried to make conversation people had been too flustered by his celebrity to talk straight. It was easier to grab a book, take himself off to the small room that passed as a dorm kitchen and drown his sorrows in green tea. 

Seunghyun took a sip and made a face. He hated green tea and missed soju, but alcohol was a luxury item that he was a long way off earning in the eyes of the South Korean Army. He tried not to think too hard about Francis, who was no doubt back home thinking very hard about him. The only person Seunghyun had ever been able to tolerate on a long term basis, his flatmate was more than a little partial to a drink of an evening and it seemed unlikely that he had decided to slow down with his landlord out of town. 

Maybe Seunghyun was being a little harsh. There were plenty of people who’s company he could tolerate on a long term basis, Bigbang would have imploded by now if he couldn’t, but everyone else had had to learn when to back off and leave him to his own devises. Francis was an artist and a blabber mouth and it could be hard to believe he had ever shut up in his life, but most impressive was the fact Seunghyun didn’t resent him for it. 

“All painting is an accident,” Francis would grin, having watched Seunghyun miss his step and splatter paint over something that had previously looked like it had purpose, “But it’s also not an accident. Because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.” Then he would cut very carefully around the splatter, and add another page to his wall of accidents created by Seunghyun. 

It was a far cry from having a Sergeant screaming in his face because he missed a leaf while raking in the yard, that’s for sure. 

Seunghyun shook his head, trying to clear out any stray thoughts of Francis. They’d see each other when he was next on shore-leave, it’s not like he had a girlfriend to go back to. 

One of the great advantages of hanging out in the dorm kitchen, was the lack of attention it garnered from anyone else in his troop. Beyond the odd soldier drifting in for a cup of tea, Seunghyun could be more or less sure that he would be left alone. 

Still, there’s a first time for everything. “Is the coast clear?” 

Seunghyun looked up to see a familiar bushy face staring down at him. Karl. Instantly recognisable by nature of his not being Korean and his ability to keep wriggling out of the CO’s line of sight before anyone could give him the mandatory shave that soldiers were supposed to receive before they moved into the barracks. He was Russian or Ukrainian or something, with bright black eyes and a main of grey facial hair. Seunghyun hadn’t ever had much of a conversation with him, but Karl would sometimes catch his eye across the mess and wink as if the two of them were party to a secret. 

Blinking, Seunghyun looked round the room. No one else in sight. “I guess so.”

“Excellent. You don’t mind if I hide out here for a while, right? They’re after me with a set of clippers.”

On the one hand, Seunghyun definitely did mind if Karl stayed. On the other, his beard was one of the few breaths of fresh air going in the army, and Seunghyun was compelled to protect it. After a moment’s consideration, he nodded to the one empty chair in the room by way of acquiescence. 

“Many thanks,” Karl beamed, “I keep trying to explain that it would be a tragedy to lose this beard but they never listen. I suppose I could grow it back again but it’s the principal of the thing, you know?”

“If it grew back, they’d cut it off again. It wouldn’t be a tragedy anymore, it would just be a farce.” Seunghyun replied. He hadn’t meant to sound so morbid. The grey of the barracks was already bleeding into his bones. 

Karl did not seem remotely phased by Seunghyun’s dour temperament. His eyes sharpened and his back straightened, the way people always pull themselves together when they believe they’re in the company of someone who shares their values. “Right you are, young man. You know, if you were interested-”

“I’m not,” Seunghyun cut in before Karl could get too far with his proposition. It had to be a proposition. People like Karl didn’t survive in the army without a serious agenda, and they didn’t single out people like Seunghyun without intent. 

Karl sat back in his seat, smirking, “you mean you’re not even a little interested in overthrowing the military elite and allowing the common soldier an equal share in rank and file.”

Seunghyun frowned, “it doesn’t work like that. In that kind of system the title ‘common soldier’ wouldn’t mean anything.”

“Exactly”

“The military is, by it’s nature, a hierarchical order.” 

“And I’m telling you it doesn’t have to be.” The gleam in Karl’s eyes was insufferable and unwavering. It sparked something in Seunghyun, a curiosity of sorts, mixed with a feeble hope of friendship. Karl was not an easy person to talk to, but then again, neither was Francis. 

Shutting his book and setting down his rapidly cooling tea, Seunghyun turned to face Karl properly. “I’m listening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why write silly crack fic when you can take nonsense prompts seriously?


	64. Ribba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi is an aspiring furniture designer and Seunghyun is an important figure in the Ikea creative team

Leiden. The Netherlands. Eight thirty in the morning, if you can believe it. It’s late enough in the year that the sun is well and truly up but not so late that its low lying glare doesn’t burn Yoongi’s eyes. As he crosses the car park, surrounded by hundreds of fresh faced junior employees, he tries to keep his sights set on the building in front of him. A beacon of furniture design, wrapped up in blue and gold. 

He’s carrying his portfolio as neatly as he can, but it’s big enough to take A1 drawings, and more than a few times he narrowly avoids whacking it into the shins of the unsuspecting masses. One time he cuts a little too close, and a very tall, very blonde man gives him an earful in Dutch. 

Yoongi doesn’t speak Dutch. Hell, his English is patchy at best. In theory his school transcripts have always been up to scratch, but that doesn’t account for Min Yoongi’s uncanny talent for the lucky guess. 

Once inside the building, the sunlight issue is no longer a problem. Whether retail, business or design department, the lack of natural light in Ikea is universal. Yoongi would know, he feels like he’s spent the better part of the last two years stalking every location they have through Google Earth. Every large company worth their salt has at least one office block with walls of glass but not these guys. Here, you hide away from the world and you get your shit done. 

The building’s foyer is wide, with high ceilings and a mind bogglingly large number of corridors leading away from its central hub. The hoards of people heading in from the car park all know exactly where they’re going. They divide into groups and lines leading down well trodden paths and up stairs and nothing makes very much sense to Yoongi. There’s signage everywhere, but it’s all in Dutch and English and after ten minutes squinting at a big blue floor plan, he’s no closer to making head or tail of it. There are pull out maps for visitors in half a dozen European languages, Japanese and three different variants of Chinese characters. No Korean though. 

There’s a row of perky young people tucked into an alcove on the other side of the foyer. Again, the signs that adorn their booth advertise services in a myriad of languages, but none that Yoongi has a particularly firm grasp of. 

Which leaves him with two options. He either has to start walking and hope that he eventually finds himself where he needs to be, or he needs to call on his meager reserves of English and ask for some help. The first option sounds infinitely more appealing, but it’s getting on for nine and this place is anything but small. The chances of getting lost are too high and he’s running low on time. Yoongi runs through vocabulary in his head, takes a deep breath and steps up to the booth. 

“How may I help you this morning, sir?” The girl is beaming half as bright as the sun before Yoongi reaches the counter. Her teeth look unnaturally white next to the bright red of her lipstick, which appears to match perfectly with that of every other girl manning the help desk. Her hair is dark, pulled back into a tight bun and making the blue of her eyes pop. She looks like in another light, a little less well put together, she might be distractingly pretty. 

What’s more, her English accent is flawless, as far as Yoongi can tell. She’s either a native speaker or has been using the language since she was in nappies. His nerves catch up to him very quickly, making language mistakes in front of someone with a functional understanding of English is one thing. Blundering in front of an experienced speaker is a whole other category of embarrassing.

Yoongi offers her a weak smile in return, runs through what he wants to say one more time before opening his mouth. “I am going to meet with Choi Seunghyun.”

“Ah!” The girl’s smile miraculously appears to grow even wider, “you must be Mr Choi’s nine o’clock.”

Yoongi nods, unable to think of anything to say to that. He always forgets how much English he understands when it’s being spoken, it’s the speaking part that gets it for him. 

The girl calls over what looks to be a security guard. Tall, suited, honey blonde hair, a sharp face that melts into a smile when he reaches the desk. The two of them talk for a moment in rapid fire Dutch before the guard spares Yoongi a second glance and motions for him to follow. 

The guy doesn’t say much. Perhaps he doesn’t speak English either. No matter the reason, Yoongi is grateful not to have to think too hard. Just follow, up stairs, through great wide corridors in painted white concrete and into the the complex little alleys that make up the nervous system of the building. 

Eventually, Yoongi is stopped outside a yellow door. Identical to every other door in this area save for the tiny blue plaque reading ‘Seunghyun Choi’. The name looks so bizarre, reversed to fit European naming conventions, that Yoongi starts trying to piece together an English sentence to explain the discrepancy to the guard. 

He doesn’t get very far before the guard reaches over and knocks. From the other side, a deep voice shouts something in Dutch. The guard gets the handle, ushers Yoongi inside, then retreats back into the maze of corridors from whence they had come. 

The rest of the building was well lit, bright and airy, in keeping with every Ikea building Yoongi had even been in in his life. This room, on the other hand, has just one light source. A crane lamp hangs over the desk at the far end of the room, casting the artwork lining the walls in shadow but perfectly illuminating the sketches that the occupier had been working on. Yoongi blinks against the low light, till his surroundings come into focus and he can make sense of the figure sat behind the desk. 

He looks just like he always does in pictures. His suit is impeccably tailored - turquoise with a heavily patterned shirt underneath. His hair is already falling out of whatever style he gelled it into that morning and there’s a slight smile playing around his eyes. “Hello there, Mr Min,” he rumbles, thankfully in Korean. 

“Hello Mr Choi,” Yoongi manages not to trip over his tongue, stepping over to the desk and taking the hand that is offered for him to shake. 

“Please, sit,” Mr Choi says, gesturing to a chair on Yoongi’s side of the desk, “so, you’re interested in joining the Ikea design team?”

Yoongi falls back into the chair, which isn’t particularly plush but a whole lot comfier than it looks. He props his portfolio up between his knees and looks up to meet Mr Choi’s eyes, “yes sir.”

“Well then, put your portfolio on the table and let’s see what you’ve got.”

Mr Choi is meticulous in his examination, the design he was working on before Yoongi arrived apparently forgotten as he rifles through the portfolio. First he lays out the work in chronological order, commenting on progress and how Yoongi’s influences can be seen to overlap and separate throughout his time as a designer. Then he lays them out by style, drawing attention to anything he thinks is particularly emblematic of design flare. 

He doesn’t ask many questions. Only stopping to clarify that he’s making his deductions correctly. Yoongi feels like he’s been struck dumb, only able to nod or shake his head in response. He’s not sure what the time is, but if he had to guess, he’d say they’ve been sat there for an hour or more. 

Only after he’s approached the work from every possible angle does Mr Choi sit back, eyes still raking over Yoongi’s work like he’s sure he hasn’t mined it’s full potential. Normally prospective employers take a nominal glance at a portfolio at best, it’s both terrifying and gratifying to have someone give an honest shit about his work to date. 

“Where are you based?” Mr Choi asks. 

“A small firm back in Seoul.”

“You’re not from Seoul.”

“I grew up in Daegu.”

Mr Choi smiles, the corners of his mouth turning up just a fraction and warming his face completely, “that explains the accent. It’s a long way to come for work though. From Korea to the Netherlands, I mean.”

Yoongi shrugs, “I want to be a furniture designer. There’s no better place to learn that craft than here.”

“I’d say you already understand the craft,” Mr Choi gestures to the papers littering his desk, “but understanding how to make beautiful furniture isn’t the same thing as understanding how to make beautiful furniture that everyone can use. I can teach you that, if you’re willing to make the leap.”

It takes Yoongi a long moment to fully parse that sentence and all it’s implications. “So,” he starts, “you’re offering me a job?”

Mr Choi doesn’t say anything, but his smile hitches itself a little further up his cheeks. It’s all Yoongi can do not to whoop for joy as he gets to his feet and reaches out to shake hands and seal the deal. 

“Thank you so much! I promise I won’t let you down, I’ll be here every day, working hard, giving it my best. You won’t regret this Mr Choi.” He’s blabbering, he knows. He can’t bring himself to care.

“You tell me when you’re ready to start. You’ll need to speak English or Dutch to a passable level, but you’d be surprised what you can get away with here.” Mr Choi’s hands are warm and his shake is firm, “is six weeks enough time for you to make the move?”

“Definitely,” Yoongi grins. And really, someone ought to stitch this smile on because he had no plans to get rid of it any time in the foreseeable future. He’ll be happy to struggle through some late night language classes if it means getting to feel like this day in day out. 

With the relevant papers signed and Mr Choi in possession of Yoongi’s contact details, the time comes for Yoongi to depart. The two of them repack his portfolio and then he makes for the door. 

Before he turns the handle, Yoongi stops. He can’t for the life of him remember how to get back to the foyer, and the guard who brought him to Mr Choi’s office is long gone. Once again, he debates the merits of winging it verses asking for help, but before he can come to his own conclusion Mr Choi appears at his shoulder. 

“Here,” he holds out a map of the building that had once been in English. Only every word has been scribbled out, replaced with handwritten hangeul that Yoongi can only assume Mr Choi wrote in himself. 

“Thanks,” Yoongi says with a quick bow. After that everything is easy, the path ahead clear now he knows where he’s going. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao can you believe some people write kpop fic where the idols are still idols? Me neither


	65. After All This Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chankyun exorcises a few of his demons left over from No Mercy
> 
> (basically Gunhee and Changkyun misunderstanding each other for far too long and finally sorting their shit out)

It’s not uncommon for ex-trainees to come flitting through the dorm. The reality of the trainee system sees friendships forged in fire and brimstone, leaving so little room for anything else that even year-old feuds are set aside in a heartbeat when someone’s in need of a friend. Hyunwoo’s friendship with the boys from GOT7 is just the tip of the iceberg, there’s not one of them that doesn’t have contacts in far off places. Sometimes they get to catch up at music shows and big concerts, sometimes they have to come crawling in through the back door. 

Changkyun has friends from his trainee days, the same as the rest of the group, but it’s different for him. The other six members of Monsta X all know each other’s people, regardless of how close they might be to them. Coming up together through the same company has given them time to adapt to familiar faces, first met under contracts long null and void. Changkyun showed up at the eleventh hour, and his group mates never had time to adjust to his friends in the same manner. 

That whole last minute switch out thing still bums him out from time to time. He’s more or less dealt with it, he can’t pretend he ever found it in himself to be truly sorry that he was the one chosen for the final lineup for Monsta X. But sometimes he comes into the kitchen to find Jooheon and Gunhee laughing together, entwined in each other’s personal space and so perfectly matched that it hurts. He can’t help but feel a little bit bad for breaking that up. 

Gunhee is universally popular, it would seem. Their tutors have fond memories, the people in the marketing department can’t help but smile when his name is brought up, and the rest of the group well and truly lose their shit whenever he comes to visit. Every time, without fail, when Song Gunhee crosses their threshold, he is greeted with a chorus of cheers and pulled into half a dozen hugs. And that’s not just coming from Jooheon. 

But Changkyun doesn’t know him like that. As far as he’s aware, Gunhee still views him as the spanner that got thrown in the workings of his life and it’s difficult to blame him. So Changkyun hangs back, offers polite smiles and makes the tea. The others have catching up to do, and he’s always going to be a little outside their friendship circles. 

Which is probably why he feels so awkward, standing in the way of the dorm’s open door, looking at Gunhee. He would go and alert the others that the prodigal son is back once again but everyone else is out. 

“Hi!” Gunhee grins at him. He looks exactly as pleased to be here as he always does, which Changkyun has to assume is because he has no idea that he’s come at a bad time. 

“Hi,” Changkyun responds. Still standing in the doorway, gormless. “Um, everyone else is out.”

Gunhee nods, “you gonna let me in?”

He’s still smiling. He doesn’t look or sound disappointed, and Changkyun knows that disappointment is possible for Gunhee. It’s rare, but he saw Show Me The Money the same as everyone else. 

For a long moment, Changkyun debates just telling Gunhee to come back later. It sounds a whole lot easier than trying to make small talk until the others get back. God, he can’t even remember where they are. Hyunwoo and Hoseok said something about the gym and he’s pretty sure Minhyuk had to go to the dermatologist, but otherwise they could be anywhere. 

He stands aside. Gunhee passes and starts removing his shoes. Changkyun watches him, unsure what to say, before he remembers his usual roll in these proceedings. 

“You want some tea?”

“That would be great,” Gunhee beams, wrestling his feet free and following Changkyun to the kitchen. 

He still knows where they keep everything - he’s never away long enough not to catch up when someone decides the kitchen layout needs to be mixed up a little. Changkyun doesn’t have to do anything more than boil the kettle and stand back as Gunhee dives into the boxes of herbal teas that he, Hoseok and Kihyun are so fond of. 

When Gunhee finds what he’s looking for, his head snaps up, grinning triumphant, “raspberry leaf and vanilla!” 

It sounds horrible to Changkyun, who fishes himself out a bag of green tea for his own mug. The trouble is that once the kettle has boiled there’s little else to fill the space with but the smell of raspberry scented chemicals wafting through the air. 

“So,” Gunhee starts, “how’ve you been?”

“Fine.” Changkyun replies. He can’t think of anything else to say. They’ve been preparing for a comeback, he’s pretty sure his left ankle is gonna shatter into it’s component atoms is he sprains it one more time, he’s about ready to strangle Hyungwon in his sleep if he doesn’t stop snoring. Lee Changkyun is a man of few words at the best of times, he might be able to string the mundane details of his life into a proper conversation with one of his friends, but he has nothing worth telling Gunhee about. “You?”

“Oh you know, keeping busy. Been working on some new music but to be honest with you, the beats I’ve got are pretty lame. I wanna be able to put some stuff out this year but I’m gonna need a better producer if I want to be proud of it. I don’t really wanna just go and put out another mixtape for lack of good beats either, you know? Man I tell you what, you don’t know how good you have it as a trainee until you have to hack it by yourself.”

Changkyun nods along, not really sure if he’s supposed to be contributing to the conversation but unable to see an opening that might accommodate him. Gunhee has a disarmingly intense stare, latching hold of his attention and reeling him in, past talk of music and contracts and into the depths of home ownership and rental apartments. After the first five minutes, he’s more or less got the hang of interjecting encouraging noises where necessary. In the next fifteen, he learns how to point out where something similar has happened to him, though not at the expense of Gunhee’s tumble of sentences. 

Having finished regaling Changkyun with the story of a pigeon stuck in his walls that the landlord mistook for a rat, Gunhee tips back his head and laughs. Changkyun manages a sympathetic chuckle as he waits for the verbal barrage to continue, but to his horror, Gunhee appears to have finally shut up. 

Silence comes roaring in to occupy the space so recently vacated by Gunhee’s voice, and Changkyun’s stomach twists uncomfortably. They’re still standing in the kitchen, their tea long drunk and the others aren’t back yet. He doesn’t have anything to say to fill the gap, can only stare helplessly at Gunhee, silently begging him not to make this awkward. 

One second of silence becomes ten, and by then it’s definitely awkward. This would probably be the time to imply that Gunhee should leave, ushering him out of the door for lack of any words whatsoever. Changkyun’s chewing over just how to phrase it, when Gunhee goes and says something that takes them from awkward to extremely uncomfortable. 

“You know back with the No Mercy…”

Changkyun’s stomach plummets. Of course that was what Gunhee was waiting for. They’ve never properly had it out about what happened back then, how Changkyun had been brought in at the last minute and taken a spot that was so clearly not meant for him. Part of him knows that it’s high time they got this over with and moved on with their lives but mostly he just wants to forget it. They can pretend they don’t know each other, or that the other is invisible or something, whatever’s easiest. But he doesn’t really want to have this conversation. 

Squaring his shoulders slightly, and standing up a little straighter, Changkyun nods for Gunhee to continue. He can feel his heart throbbing against the inside of his cranium. 

Gunhee’s expression has darkened to something markedly more serious than his typically unshakable grin. “It was a real dick move what they did, Bringing you in like that.”

Changkyun’s blood is thrumming in his ears. He still can’t think of anything to say. 

“So I just wanted to know like…are we cool?”

Changkyun blinks. He is distantly aware that Gunhee is offering him a hand to shake, that the corner of his mouth is shaking just a little, like he’s nervous. He can’t make head nor tail of it, “what?”

Gunhee breaks eye contact for a moment, hand still held out even as his shoulders start to slouch, “I mean, it couldn’t have been easy for you. I know we weren’t very nice when you first showed up and I know you’re good with the others now. But you and me never got to have it out like that and I don’t want you to think I don’t like you or something just because I was in a mood two years ago.”

It’s the single most bizarre thing Changkyun’s heard in his life. The notion that he would hold some kind of grudge in lieu of his own success is preposterous, and the idea that Gunhee has been operating under the impression that that might have been what was going on with him sets his guilt circuits into overdrive. 

“That’s really…what? That doesn’t make any sense.” Changkyun’s tongue feels uselessly maladapted to deal with this conversation. Gunhee shrinks a little further into himself and it’s all he can do to grab his hand before he withdraws it entirely, “of course I don’t hate you. I thought you hated me.”

Confusion flashes in Gunhee’s eyes like wildfire as he brings them back to meet Changkyun’s, “I hate the production team, and I kinda hate the board of directors for deciding bringing you in at the last minute was a good idea. But I don’t hate _you_ , Changkyun. I know it’s not your fault.”

“Oh,” is all Changkyun can think to say. His fingers tighten around Gunhee’s and they shake once, firm and fast, before their hands fall back to their sides and all the tension that was cramping his stomach falls away. 

This time there’s silence, but it doesn’t fester into awkwardness on impact. Gunhee’s smile is back in place, looking warmer and more permanent, if such a thing were possible. Changkyun has no idea where they’re supposed to go from here, but it feels like a very good start. 

“You wanna go watch TV?” Gunhee asks, voice bright. 

Changkyun does, he really really does. There’s so little downtime to be had once promotions start up and he’s desperate to enjoy the feeling of diminished time constraints while he has the chance. He nods and follows Gunhee back into the living room, not needing to say another word. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Hermione Granger voice* boys...


End file.
